Chile Forum

Im spaniard and chilean. maybe when catalonia get the independence i would have 3 citizenships

As of 2008 there are some important tax consequences for U.S. residents who change their citizenship status:

http://www.withersworldwide.com/news-publications/324/exit-tax-u-s-expatriates-to-become-law.aspx

http://blog.mises.org/archives/010024.asp

There are exceptions based on income and other factors (enough to keep the CPAs and lawyers happy), but it's probably best to get professional advice and "look before you leap"...

My children can have dual citizenship because their Dad was born in Chile... but not me because I was not born in Chile, i am just married to a Chilean. Where do I go in Santiago to take care of this? Do I need to get their US birth certificates "legalized" by the Chilean consulate here in the US?? That is what they are telling me. Or is it just one more way for them to make money off an unnecessary procedure?

Chile is not a party to the Hague convention on legalization, so yes you do have to have all the required documents legalized if they come from outside the country.

There is an update, and I posted it to a separate thread earlier. We have it on good authority from immigration that now permanent residents can now apply for duel citizenship without giving up their former citizenship. We filed a formal request with immigration for an official clarification on the issue a couple of months ago. You must be a permanent resident for at least 5 years to be eligible. We know of at least one of these applications in process currently, and are still waiting for one to actually be granted. As soon as we know more, we will post it.

Out of curiosity, I wonder that no one has mentioned the loop holes? A friend of mine looked into dual citizenship quite a few years ago and back then, from what we were able to ascertain, here in Canada there was a bit of a loop hole. A country (like Chile) could demand that you give up your Canadian citizenship to become a Chilean citizen... so you renounced on Chilean soil. From what we were able to find out though, Canada did not acknowledge this. You would have to actually apply to the Canadian government to renounce your citizenship directly. You have to submit the application, pay the fee and it has to be accepted and processed, etc. They won't ackowledge any sort of formal document from another country for this. As most countries are this way, when she was asked to renounce, they gave her paperwork from her new country to state that she relinquished her Canadian citizenship. So it all ended up being moot. Just extra paperwork and more lip service than anything since she never applied to the canadian government and merely applied for non-resident status... has anyone else heard of this?

There's a link to the Canadian government website if you google... I don't think I can post links yet, sorry.

yea, I had always kind of wonder about that. I really doubt the Chilean government would check our care. All kind of irrelevant now that they do allow duel citizenship.

admin wrote:yea, I had always kind of wonder about that. I really doubt the Chilean government would check our care. All kind of irrelevant now that they do allow duel citizenship.

This PT might actually follow this path.

¡¡¡ VIVA CHILE (MIERDA) !!!

Had a discussion with a local American who is coming up on five years residency in Chile and considering applying for citizenship here, i.e., dual citizenship. Since the opinions of the Evil Empire always amuse us, and the tinto was nearly gone, we checked to see what the US State Dept is saying about dual citizenship these days. Opinions in the past tended to suggest that the US didn't understand the concept. Here is what we found on a State Dept website.

A U.S. citizen may acquire foreign citizenship by marriage, or a person naturalized as a U.S. citizen may not lose the citizenship of the country of birth.U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship. However, a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship. Intent can be shown by the person's statements or conduct.The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Claims of other countries on dual national U.S. citizens may conflict with U.S. law, and dual nationality may limit U.S. Government efforts to assist citizens abroad. The country where a dual national is located generally has a stronger claim to that person's allegiance......Use of the foreign passport does not endanger U.S. citizenship

The consensus from this and other discussions on the forum seems to be that the USG has finally openly acknowledged and accepted the concept of dual citizenship and that a US citizen can take Chilean citizenship and retain US citizenship if the intent is to be a dual national, that is, if the intent is not to give up US citizenship.

We all got a good laugh out of the mention of "...dual nationality may limit U.S. Government efforts to assist citizens abroad." since the USG normally doesn't do much of anything significant to help its foreign-domiciled citizens unless they contributed heavily to the party in power, were a GS-14 or higher, or had recently appeared in People magazine.

Know many people with dual U.S. and Chilean citizenship. No problems.

Please underline the statements MAY and INTENT in that piece of PR political spin from the U.S. gov you posted. That is to discourage the tax base from running away. I am not aware of any cases of them actively hunting people down and beating them to find out if they "intended" to give up their citizenship. If they did that, then they would not be able to collect the $500 exist fee.

admin wrote:Know many people with dual U.S. and Chilean citizenship. No problems.

Please underline the statements MAY and INTENT in that piece of PR political spin.......

Weasel words, the key to ambiguity.

We all got a good laugh out of the mention of "...dual nationality may limit U.S. Government efforts to assist citizens abroad."

USG may provide assistance, though the probability of useful assistance may be indistinguishable from zero.