A Perfect Catch-22 for an Overseas American, according to American Citizens Abroad (ACA)

American Citizens Abroad, a citizens advocacy organization, is astounded and dismayed by the Catch-22 situation faced by an American citizen whom we'll call Joe. Born in the US but raised in Great Britain, Joe cannot get a social security number because he grew up overseas, and without that number, he can't submit tax returns which would allow him to accept a prestigious post at a US university. If he had applied for the post in the United States as a British national instead of an American, he would be working at the university already instead of spending all his time negotiating with US governmental agencies and departments.

(PRWEB) September 2, 2007 -- Americans living overseas have long complained, often bitterly, about the unfairness of the US requirement that they have to file tax returns and pay US taxes over and above the taxes they already have to pay on their foreign source income to the governments of the countries where they reside. But what about a fellow who wants to file a US tax return but can't? The following extraordinary case has recently come to the attention of American Citizens Abroad (ACA), a nonprofit nonpartisan citizens advocacy organization, and ACA has his permission to share his improbable tale with a large audience. To protect his privacy, let's just call him "Joe".

Joe was born in the United States 45 years ago. With his English mother and American father he moved to England when he was two years old. Joe has two passports, one British passport and one American. He was brought up essentially as an Englishman and has visited the US only a few times for vacations and business trips. He attended British primary and secondary schools and won a place at Cambridge University where he earned a PhD in 1992. He was then a lecturer at University College in Dublin until 2002. He is currently an associate professor at an important Swiss University.

Last year, when Joe renewed his US passport, he discovered in reading the small print inside that he was required as an overseas American to report his worldwide income to the IRS. Joe had never been aware of any tax obligations to the US before, and so as a good American he subsequently attempted to correct this situation. In early 2007, he tried to file tax returns for tax years 2005 and 2006, but the IRS told him that his tax returns could not be processed because he did include his US Social Security number (SSN) on the form. This would turn out to be a major complication because he did not have a Social Security number. When he was born, Social Security numbers were not routinely issued at birth in the United States, and he had never subsequently sought one. Not to worry, he was told, he could apply right away for a US Social Security number with the assistance of the US Embassy in Bern.

That's when he made another interesting discovery. The Social Security administration has to independently confirm the veracity of his claim to have been born in the United States. To his astonishment, sending a copy of his original birth certificate was not sufficient. The Social Security people also sought proof that he had just cause for never having had a SSN by the age of 45. To satisfy this latest requirement, Joe has sent in many additional documents, including British school certificates and professional records, to try to prove to their satisfaction that he has never lived in the USA since he left as a baby. Jackie Bugnion, one of the Directors of ACA, comments: "Ironically, it's now clear that it would have been a lot easier for Joe to get a SSN if he had been born overseas and his birth as a US citizen had simply been registered there."

The Embassy had warned Joe that the application process could take many months because of widespread fraud that has been plaguing of the SSN system and also because of rampant identity theft in the US. They were right. Three months have now passed and Joe is still waiting for his social security number.

Why is Joe so impatient, - after all, who is anxious to file tax returns? Jackie Bugnion of ACA explains that Joe has recently been invited by a major US university to take up a very prestigious position as a full professor with tenure in the field of Public Health Epidemiology. His specialty is diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans. He was offered this professorship because he has already earned a considerable global reputation in this area. Many new diseases emerging in humans have their origins in animals and hence this is considered to be a very important academic area for our nation's bio-security and the health of our population. The American university would like Joe to initiate an international public health program. This is an exciting professional opportunity for Joe, but to accept he needs to file his overdue tax returns, and for this he needs a US social security number. It gets even more complicated: he learned that he has to file three previous years of tax returns in order to get the affidavits of financial support that are now required for his wife and children to get their US visas to accompany him. So he is stuck and cannot do anything more until he gets a social security number.

Andy Sundberg of ACA explains: "The absurdity of this situation is even more extreme when we take a look at Joe's case from the broad perspective of US national interest." Joe works in a field where the United States faces a dire shortage of qualified professionals. This July, the US Senate passed without opposition the Veterinary Public Health Workforce Expansion Act as an amendment to the Higher Education Authorization Bill. This bill had already been adopted in the House in February. It authorizes $1.5 billion for a grants program aimed at relieving a national shortage of practicing veterinarians. Veterinary professionals are seen as integral to U.S. national security and the safety of our national food supply. The American Veterinary Medical Association has stated that recent studies show dramatic shortfalls of veterinarians in key public health practice areas such as bioterrorism and emergency preparedness, environmental health, and the security of our food supply system.

Time will soon run out on this offer to Joe of a professorship in the US, because someone has to fill this role soon and Joe still can't assure the University that he will be available to teach there by the required date.

Joe has not yet given up, but the way the system functions continues to amaze him. When he called the Social Security processing office in Baltimore to try to trace his file, the first thing the automated answering machine asked for was his social security number! When he finally made contact with a human voice he was told that the Baltimore Social Security office had received the file from the Bern embassy in mid June, one month after Joe had first made the application, and it had indeed been clearly marked "urgent".

Social Security has now passed the file on to Homeland Security and it is anyone's guess what happens now in this huge governmental department. Only time will tell whether Joe will finally be able to accept the offer from the prestigious American university, or whether Homeland Security by diligence or default will deprive the United States of this vitally needed professional, who is an American citizen by birth and passport.

Joe realizes that if he had been only British, and not also American, he would have already been able to accept the position and would now be working in the US. He would have easily qualified for an Extraordinary Ability Visa (EB1), an Outstanding Researcher Visa (EB2) or a National Interest Waiver (EB2). Being an American has made the process much more complicated for Joe and his family.

One last detail: when completing his US tax forms, Joe was also dumbfounded to learn that he could not take deductions on his 1040 forms for his young children living in his household overseas because they are not American citizens. Yet the law prohibits him from passing on his American nationality to his children as he did not meet the five year prior US residency requirement to transmit US citizenship to his children who were born overseas.

If he eventually gets all of the necessary paperwork done to be able to teach in the United States, the children deduction problem will fortunately get resolved. Even though overseas American taxpayers are not allowed to take deductions for their children if these children are not US citizens (unless the taxpayer lives in Canada or Mexico), this discrimination vanishes and his children will become acceptable deductions if they are living with him and he begins filing his tax forms in the United States. That, at least, came as a welcome surprise.

American Citizens Abroad has no idea how many other Americans living overseas are also caught up in this current discordant maze of US laws and procedures. But ACA feels strongly that for national security reasons alone, it is vital for the US Government to put American citizens' rights and rational national interest issues ahead of bureaucratic inertia and illogical laws.

The headquarters of American Citizens Abroad are located at 5 rue Liotard, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland. The website address of ACA is www.aca.ch

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