What are the downsides to UK citizenship?

June 1, 2009 3:53 AM

Query regarding US/UK dual citizenship: specifically, possible downsides for an American taking British nationality?

I'm an American long term resident of London.

I own a flat (well, I own %60 and the bank has claim to the rest), work in The City, have taken two Masters in England, teach finance part time at a few Universities here and I'm active in UK / Local Council politics. I feel at home in Europe, more so than I did in the United States.

I came to England in mid 1997 on a work permit, employed by a European bank. Got Indefinite Leave to Remain in 2001 (thus freeing myself from European bank's chains), changed jobs a few times since and married a Dutch national in 2007.

I haven't seriously considered leaving England and, in fact, have either declined or restructured jobs outside the UK (i.e., my last banking position was to be based in Nederlands but I negotiated a split working contract dividing my week between London & Amsterdam).

Recently the British government has announced plans to introduce probationary citizenship, which becomes effective after five years continuous residence.

About one year before this, Darling & Brown changed tax laws applicable to non doms. Before this, exposing my state side assets to global (i.e., British) taxation was a big negative (as in a large bill) to taking citizenship. But now that's been removed and between this as well as probationary citizenship, I can't think of any significant downsides to taking citizenship.

I can't find an online link, but chatter in the ex-pat community here indicates that probationary citizenship is mandatory after ten years continuous residence, which would neatly ensnare myself and present a very simple solution to the UK's ongoing problem with non-doms.

Naturally I prefer to be in control and would much rather jump than be pushed - so what are the pros & cons to taking British citizenship?

On the plus side I've got being able to enter some nations on my British passport but without a visa, could vote here, I'd be a full citizen of both the UK as well as the EU, could live and work in any other EU nation without a visa, wouldn't have to worry about some legislative changes impacting my current status that might uproot me and my wife (unlikely I know as I've got Indefinite Leave to Remain, but a non zero probability nonetheless) and, purely from a subjective point of view but sorta important to me, I'd finally feel like I'm genuinely a part of the UK instead of just passing through.

It seems that global taxation of assets, the big negative for me at least, has been removed from the list due to Darling's actions.

So does any one have any other issues, either pro or con, to add?

From an operational viewpoint, I already know about the Nationality Checking Service to verify my documents and expedite the process, I'm comfortable with the fees (£655 but subject to change) and as it seems like processing times have recently been reduced (we're now hearing of folks getting citizenship in six weeks) I'm inclined - unless some serious negatives are raised out of this query - to just do it.

I previously raised this query at a specialist forum ("UK-Yankee") but was very disappointed at the rigour of responses received. I already have a second passport so I'm familiar with the issues of dual nationality in general. I can get a Dutch passport in another year, but as their system imposes an annual wealth tax on global assets, I'll leave the pros & cons of that decision for another question.

posted by Mutant to law & government (14 comments total)

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that EU citizens are allowed to work or live in any EU nation.
posted by dunkadunc at 4:33 AM on June 1

Meaning no offense, but you probably won't get answers that seem rigorous to you unless you ask questions that are more specific and, well, rigorous than "What are the possible downsides?"

I mean, you surely understand that the difference will only be that you will no longer be able to insist that the UK treat you as a foreigner, and are smart enough to look around yourself to see how the UK treats its own citizens.

Really, I'm not sure what you might be worried about. Under current and longstanding US policy, the US doesn't give a shit what other countries you swear allegiance to. The UK doesn't have conscription now, and even if they did you're too old, and the UK is not well-known for imposing onerous requirements on its citizens in any case.

The only conceivable downside I'm aware of that you might not be is that if you chose to return to the US, there are a small number of sensitive government positions for which the at least informal requirement is not that you be a US citizen, but that you not hold any foreign citizenship. So your dream of being an NSA spook or working at Groom Lake might be harder to achieve. I've only ever seen this brought up with naturalized US citizens being pressured to drop their citizenship of birth, though.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:31 AM on June 1

dunkadunc - you're right, and mutant is aware of this. He says : On the plus side I've got being able to enter some nations on my British passport but without a visa, could vote here, I'd be a full citizen of both the UK as well as the EU, could live and work in any other EU nation without a visa.
He currently has Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK, but that doesn't automatically confer the right to live and work anywhere but the UK, even though he is married to an EU citizen.

Regarding the UK-Yankee forums, they're pretty informational on a very basic level, but I've seen some dangerously inaccurate information thrown around there pretty regularly. I wish I could be more helpful, but all I can say is that, personally, I'm simply going to go for citizenship at the earliest possible opportunity in order to protect myself and my family from the whims of the government, which is such a mess at the moment that I wouldn't be surprised to see pretty much anything happen... it's so easy to use immigrants as political scapegoats because they can't vote to protect themselves.
posted by Wroksie at 5:33 AM on June 1

I am in the same position as you, Mutant. One benefit that occurs to me is that if you renounced your US citizenship you would no longer have the US global tax issue to deal with. That benefit occurs to me every year about this time as I work with my accountants to file US returns. I agreed that now the the non-dom tax thing has been eliminated, that reason that kept me non-dom has disappeared and I've struggled to come up with downside.

I suppose in the long run UK death taxes are far more confiscatory than US ones. If, after long residence (is it 17 out of last 20 years?) the UK considers you UK-domiciled for tax purposes you may not be able to avoid this in any event. But it's hard to plan for that eventuality, supposing it to be far in the future and not having a clear idea of what will last and what will not.
posted by sagwalla at 5:53 AM on June 1

ROU_Xenophobe -- Meaning no offense, but you probably won't get answers that seem rigorous to you unless you ask questions that are more specific and, well, rigorous than "What are the possible downsides?"

No offense at all, I'm vague 'cause at present I just can't see any current downside that concerns me. The only tangible issue was taxation of global assets but that's off the table. A distant possibility might be the UK taxing the income of nationals who live & work abroad, but as the United States is just about the only other country that taxes globally (IIRC, Eritrea and The Philippines are the two others) I just don't see this as a likely outcome.


Wroksie -- ...which is such a mess at the moment that I wouldn't be surprised to see pretty much anything happen... it's so easy to use immigrants as political scapegoats because they can't vote to protect themselves.

That's precisely what's driving my thinking on this topic; immigration in the UK is increasingly becoming politicised, and its in situations like this that bystanders such as ourselves get hurt. Methinks it best to totally dodge the issue.

I suspect they'll use probationary citizenship as a way to definitively close the nom dom tax loophole - either naturalise after ten years, leave the UK or retain non domiciled status and face punitive taxation. It seems the £30K a year "fee" allowing one to be taxed on a remittance basis didn't raise as much revenue as they'd hoped it would, and they're now looking for ways to increase cash flow. Best of luck with your application though!
posted by Mutant at 6:07 AM on June 1

I took UK citizenship as soon as I could, which for me was in 2006, basing my claim on 3 years' residence plus civil-partnership with a UK citizen. (I had more residence time than that but only 3 years is required if you apply under the marriage rules.) It was a huge relief to come out of that room, papers in hand, and know that I would never again be subject to government policy on "immigrants." So far I have not experienced anything I would consider a significant downside. My British passport came through just before the interview requirement took effect, so I was lucky, but from what I have heard those personal grillings can be very annoying. It only happens once though.
posted by Tholian at 6:30 AM on June 1

Norway imposes a wealth tax on global assets as well. From my experience of being a Brit abroad, HMRC (Inland Revenue) has pretty good dual taxation agreements set up with most countries so any tax you paid overseas would be taken into consideration against UK tax liabilities. In my dealing with them, the people at the Inland Revenue have always helpful anytime I've called up with issues.
I can't think of any additional downsides to being a citizen to your current status. Good luck and enjoy being a loyal subject :o)
posted by arcticseal at 6:47 AM on June 1

edit: I can't think of any additional downsides to being a citizen compared to your current status. More caffeine needed.
posted by arcticseal at 6:49 AM on June 1

From looking at your intro my feeling is that you have already researched the question pretty well. My American wife just received her full citizenship last week so I recognise a lot of the details - for her the process took about 1 month having completed the Nationality Checking Service (great if you want to hang on to your passport while they deliberate).

The most annoying aspect of the process was paying several hundred pounds (I think costs have risen above GBP655) for what appears to be the privilege of having bureaucrats slowly double check a needlessly long and complex application form. But I guess the situation would be at least as bad in other countries.

One particularly tedious part of the application form involves listing all the times you have been out of the country in the past several years. There are limits in terms of the maximum amount of time you have spend abroad and you are not supposed to submit the application form on a first anniversary of a time when you were out of the country. Check through those details to time your application correctly.
posted by rongorongo at 7:27 AM on June 1

Afterthought: No matter how much you may consider yourself an American you are crossing a cultural border in moving from ex-pat to citizen. As a citizen you loose your outsider's rights to bitch about shortcomings of the country in the same tone you might once have done - and you can take more of a credit for strengths and successes; you become "you people". Your immediate line of government will switch from being the American Consulate to one of our beloved local MPs for example.
posted by rongorongo at 7:56 AM on June 1

Well, my wife is an American citizen, about to apply for ILR, and I intend to get her on the citizenship path as soon as humanly possible, in large part because of the reactionary, kneejerk approach to immigration this government, and very probably future ones, are taking. The cost of going through the process has nearly doubled in the two short years we've been going through it, and I can only see it getting worse. Plus, as said up-thread, if we're both EU citizens we can live nearly anywhere we like in the EEA, which is a whole lot of personal options you've opened up.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:48 AM on June 1

These FAQs cover problems and issues related to dual citizenship:

http://www.richw.org/dualcit/faq.html#twopass

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Dual-citizen#Issues
posted by Operation Afterglow at 11:30 AM on June 1

1. Jury service


2. As a UK citizen (if you're under 40 and male) you could get drafted if the UK ever finds itself in a major war yes this is unlikely but you asked for downsides


3. You still have to keep your original passport up to date because entering the US on your shiny new red one is an offense


4. Absent a renunciation of US citizenship effected while not in default to the US federal government, you still have to pay attention to possible liabilities to the IRS.


5. You will no longer be able to avail of consular assistance from Grosvenor Square while in the UK, nor will the US State Department have any legal interest in your plight in any country you later enter on your UK passport.

posted by genghis at 8:16 PM on June 1

I speak from a position of total ignorance here but aren't there taxes to pay when you abandon US citizenship, especially if you're wealthy.
posted by I_pity_the_fool at 1:30 PM on June 2