Foreign Citizenship And Social Security

Google on "SSA publication 05-10137".

Don't know the answer, but it's not so easy to drop US citizenship.

My mother-in-law is a citizen of a foreign country, and also a naturalized US citizen. This had no effect on her SS or Medicare. However, as she was living in a foreign country, she opted to NOT sign up for Medicare B (Medicare A is free). This can be a problem should you choose to sign up in the future as there is a penalty which increases your premium by 10% for each 12 month period you could have participated but didn't.

Should she choose to sign up "today", because of the various rules, she would not be covered until July 1, 2011; and the premium would be about $350-$400/month.

Don't know

--ron

According to an article in today's NYTimes, it's not that difficult, though it is clearly a big and difficult decision. Such actions have been on the upswing, apparently, since things like the Patriot Act have made banking more difficult for expats. (Not to mention how the US taxes its expats harder than other countries).

Here - worth reading:

Relinquishing citizenship is relatively simple. The person must appear before a U.S. consular or diplomatic official in a foreign country and sign a renunciation oath. This does not allow a person to escape old tax bills or military obligations.

I should rephrase. It's not difficult as a matter of procedure, but the US requires that you immediately pay capital gains tax on your stock holdings as though you have sold them, and continue to pay income tax for the next 10 yrs.