Retention of South African Citizenship forms

[andrea_vk]

Hello

I wonder if someone can help me please.

I am trying to fill up the retention of Citizenship forms, and there is this form "Determination of citizenship status"

1- If you were absent from South Africa state

Date of departure

Reason for your departure

Date in which you returned to South Africa

Does this question refer to the day I Left to come to Australia. What do you put under reasons.

2- Then it asks date in which I entered South Africa for permanent residence. I entered with a tourist visa an dthen got the permanent residence, so would you put the date of permanent residence or the date of my first arrival into SA.

3- Then it goes onto as

Particulars in respect of foreign citizenship ( I already completed this in the other form the Retention of South African citizenship . DO I put the same here. I do have another citizenship acquired by birth.

4- Then for the retention of citizenship of South Africa form

What do you say as a reason to retain South Africa citizenship, taking into account that I was not born there.

Could I just say my children and husband are South African by birth, and I may be returning there.

Thanks

Andrea

[Jordy]

I cant answer your questions because I was as confused as you are. The questions are worded very badly for someone who is wanting to apply for a citizenship in the future. They are all worded in the past tense.

As for the reason, I have no idea what is acceptable. I really had to think hard to come up with a reasons. The truth for me is that the only reason we are retaining is because we still hold property in RSA and didnt want to go through the potential unforseen hasstle of being a non-citizen owning RSA property. But I didnt think that was a valid reason so put something like "I am South African because we were born in South Africa"

[andrea_vk]

Thanks Jordy

[zetman]

Hi there,

Yip. That form is clear as mud .

We kept it short and sweet. Under reason for departure I just said "Work", and my reason for wanting to retain it was "Intend to return eventually". We eventually got our letters without issue or query.

Unfortunately I can't comment on questions 2 and 3. We were born in SA and did not have any other citizenships so these did not apply to us.

PS. If you happen to have a child born in Aus and wish to register his birth with the consulate (which if you're still a SA citizen you're apparently required to do within 12 months of the birth) you can look forward to doing 3 more of that little chestnut (one for the bub and one for each of the parents...)

z

Edited May 7, 2012 by zetman

[andrea_vk]

Thanks Zelman. No more babies for me. They were all born in South Africa.

[Nev]

Although it is reeeealy far away, if we were to give up our SA citizenship, how easy is it to travel to SA on a Auz passport to visit family?

[rozellem]

Although it is reeeealy far away, if we were to give up our SA citizenship, how easy is it to travel to SA on a Auz passport to visit family?

Easy, no visa needed, but you can only stay for 3months at a time. The paperwork for retention is bit of a schlep, but can be done easily enough and then you always have that option open to you or your future kids.

[Nev]

Thanks, I will have to put more thought into it over the next few years but with SARS wanting to see your overseas earnings it kind of makes me wonder if it is going to be worth the mission to keep, my wife and i are sold, we may do a holiday (Going for a wedding in October) but this is our new home

[andrea_vk]

Nev,

What do you mean they want to see your overseas earnings. I have been submitting tax return as nil, My accountant never said he wanted to see my earnings. When will they see your earnings?

Thanks

Andrea

[Nev]

This is a new requirement:

http://moneyfacts.co.za/news/sars-requires-you-to-declare-foreign-income

Summed up

1)You must register and have a tax number,

2) You have to submit a tax return every year even if you have been out of the country for more than 6 months and therefore do not need to pay tax on this income, on this return you need to record your overseas income and specify that there is no taxable amount

My concern is that they sound really insistent (I have read a couple of articles on this now)

Whey would they be trying to get overseas earnings information from us if they were not thinking up ways to get some of it for themselves?

[Nane]

Nev, this only applies to South African residents (for instance contract workers who work abroad for ex amount of months and then return to South Africa where their main home is). Once you move to Australia on a long term temporary (with the intention to live and work here) or permanent visa, you become an Australian resident for tax purposes (no longer SA resident). You can be a South African citizen without being a South African resident, since you can only be resident of one country (normally the country where you and your family lives for more than 6 months a year). You therefore do not have to declare anything in South Africa once you moved to Australia and become a tax resident here (on a temporary, permanent visa or as an Australian citizen), even if you retain your South African citizenship.

[Nev]

Any idea on how that applies as a rule, we here on a 4 year visa with the intention of making it permanent, at what stage does it apply, for example we have a place to live here and no longer at home does that mean we not a resident there anymore?

[Nane]

No, in this case you are no longer a South African resident (even though you still have citizenship you no longer reside there). Your residency depends on the country in which you resides. For tax purposes this law is applied in most countries through out the world. You can be a citizen of many countries, but only resident of one. Residency is calculated according to the country in which you either live (where your permanent home is) and work in, or the country where you spend more that 6 months a year in. There are other criteria when it becomes more complicated, but in your case you are now an Australian resident and tax resident.

http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.aspx?doc=/content/preview/64131.htm

Hope this helps

[Nev]

Great thanks

[Springjock]

Ok, so what do i need to do in terms if my 2011 tax year? We arrived in Jan 2011 and got residency in April of the same year. Do i need to submit anything?

I still have a pension fund in SA that I need to cash out but other than that, we have no other assets in SA. I understand i need to formally 'emigrate'?

[Nane]

Springjock you will have to speak to a Australian tax consultant (and maybe a SA one as well) as I do not know. They will be able to advise you whether you have to (and how) declare this on your AUS tax declaration. In my case I applied for and received a tax clearance certificate from SARS back in 1998 when I left South Africa. I had a small amount I had to pay before receiving my tax clearance certificate and I asume that anyone applying for this will have no more assets left in SA. Not sure whether I officially emigrated but this certificate was required at the time by the French embassy when I applied for residency in France.

[HadEnoughofJuju]

Just my two cents worth.

The only question I have is, why on earth would you want to keep your South African citizenship if you went to so much trouble to move to Australia with the intention of becoming and Australian citizen? For me, family and good friends (that we would come back to visit) have a shelf life. You can only visit with someone, in their house doing mostly what they want because you more than likely don't have your own transport, only for so long before you all drive one another insane. I must admit that when the time comes and I have to make the choice it will be easy since the decision is already made. I don't see why - when Australia does not have issues with you holding dual nationality and neither does the UK, why I should have to jump through hoops and beg the South African government to allow me to keep my citizenship. An Australian passport is worth far more in the international community than a South African one.

[zetman]

Hi there HadEnough,

It pretty much comes down to personal choice - there are numerous past threads on here that's shown that. I could just as easily say to you why would I choose to loose something I am perfectly entitled to keep, and it's not really that much of a "hoop or beg" either - you fill out a form (albeit a slightly confusing one), send it away and a few months later you get a letter. It took the sum total of 5 minuts of effort on my part.

I may not have any intention to move back to South Africa, but I still have family etc there and in our case we figured we'll hold on to it because:

1.) given that you able to get dual citizenship, thus are not forced to lose your SA citizenship, and

2.) based on our personal circumstances we did not feel there's any real practical issues with keeping it, and

3.) you can always rescind your South African citizinship later at any stage once everybody you care about there is dead and buried (or for whatever other reason). Doing that is as easy as filling out a form. So it's not a once off deal where you can only give it up when you take on dual citizenship. Getting it back once you've lost it is whole lot harder though.

To each his own. For me the question of whether or not to retain citizenship is right up there with whether or not people should stay in or leave South Africa. It's a highly personal choice, everybody will have an opinion on it and at the end of the day everybody should just do what they choose to and be respected in whatever that decision is.

z

Edited May 9, 2012 by zetman

[Heymanse]

To add to that, someone posted a really interesting response to this same issue a while ago that got me thinking and made the decision so much easier for me. It was about the fact that what would happen to either myself or my children if we were to go on holiday overseas and something should happen to us while in a foreign country (specifically thinking about a coup or something of this kind). If you hold dual citizenship then the country in which you first held citizenship, which in this case would be South Africa, would have to then lend aid to help you get out of whatever the situation is that you find yourself in. I don't particularly see South Africa coming to my rescue if something went wrong while I visited a foreign country - that's just my opinion. Now someone might say that I'm totally jumping the gun here and thinking really negatively because, hey, what's the chances that something will go wrong? I would say that I'm more of a realist and try and make decisions on the attitude of "better safe than sorry".

If, for some reason that I cannot foresee at the moment, I do wish to become a South African citizen again, then nothing prevents me from applying for it again and I don't foresee any issues with that. In the meantime, I'm quite happy to apply for Australian citizenship in a month's time and not retaining my South African citizenship.

Again, this is just my personal opinion about it and I don't expect everyone to agree with it and will not judge those that still want to keep their SA citizenship - just thought I'd share my feelings on the issue.

[HadEnoughofJuju]

Hi Zetman

I totally agree with you that it's a personal choice. For me I just don't see the sense in a third world government making you apply to stay a citizen when the first world don't really care as long as you abide by the laws of the country. Just seems ridiculous that SA thinks that they are better than the rest of the world. An attitude that was very apparent at a home affairs one afternoon while I was standing in the queue behind a British gentleman who was applying to keep the very dual nationality we are talking about. The woman behind the counter grilled the poor man to the nth degree on why, what, who, when, where etc. and it seemed like even though the answers he gave were pretty logical and reasonable that she still had a very condescending and superior attitude. Quite frankly, if the person accepting the application treats me like a second rate citizen because I want to keep both nationalities, what then will the person approving the application think? In which case I am not interested - they can have it back with all the love in the world.

Don't get me wrong, we all have very different situations and reasons for doing what we are doing and for keeping or giving up our South African citizenship when the time comes. After all we supposedly live in a free society with the right to choose and the responsibility to respect others choices. To each his own.

[HadEnoughofJuju]

To add to that, someone posted a really interesting response to this same issue a while ago that got me thinking and made the decision so much easier for me. It was about the fact that what would happen to either myself or my children if we were to go on holiday overseas and something should happen to us while in a foreign country (specifically thinking about a coup or something of this kind). If you hold dual citizenship then the country in which you first held citizenship, which in this case would be South Africa, would have to then lend aid to help you get out of whatever the situation is that you find yourself in. I don't particularly see South Africa coming to my rescue if something went wrong while I visited a foreign country - that's just my opinion. Now someone might say that I'm totally jumping the gun here and thinking really negatively because, hey, what's the chances that something will go wrong? I would say that I'm more of a realist and try and make decisions on the attitude of "better safe than sorry".

If, for some reason that I cannot foresee at the moment, I do wish to become a South African citizen again, then nothing prevents me from applying for it again and I don't foresee any issues with that. In the meantime, I'm quite happy to apply for Australian citizenship in a month's time and not retaining my South African citizenship.

Again, this is just my personal opinion about it and I don't expect everyone to agree with it and will not judge those that still want to keep their SA citizenship - just thought I'd share my feelings on the issue.

I had a colleague who's sister-in-law was on a school tour of Europe. She ate some not so kosher sea food which made her incredibly sick, putting her in a hospital in France for three days. When the other teachers that were with her tried to contact the South African Embassy in France to try and get assistance with translation (she was in a French hospital and no one there could or would speak English - a rather scary situation to be in) they were run around like mad things from pillar to post, no one there could give them straight answer nor could they even tell her if they could assist or who they could contact for assistance. Eventually, thanks to the mandatory travel insurance, they got her home. When the final bill came it was over R100K (fortunately completely covered by the insurance). We on this side were complete shocked at the lack and unwillingness to help a South African citizen in need in a foreign country. The point I am trying to make is that no matter what the situation was or whether the embassy was able to help or not, they should have at least been able to answer the questions being asked. I'm sure the Australian Embassy would have been able to answer the questions, and assist.

[nicse]

Just to get back on topic here.

The question being asked was about retention of Citizenship and the forms, not your personal reasons of why somebody would or would not like to keep their citizenship. Unfortunately the process/law is the process.

I completed these form in last year just prior to taking up my Oz citizenship.

From recall, there are 2 forms, you fill in a retention form and this determination of citizenship. (Just to say everytime you apply for a SA passport or ID book you have to do this now.)

The retention of citizenship form you use to declare your interests in taking up the Oz citizenship in your case.

The determination of citizenship form is used to state a whole list of other information.

• Yes date of departure was the date you left South Africa, since you are in Oz you do not have a return date as you are out of the country, leave it blank
  
• Yes you would put the date you got your PR visa as this would have been the date it was activated by Home Affairs as you did not enter SA, you were already here.
  
• No, you do not put Australian citizenship in here, you are not an Australian as of yet. You would put details of any other foreign citizenships you have an how you obtained them, i.e. British by birth. If you have already become Australian or taken on any other citizenships since becoming South African, but have not asked for permission to retain SA citizenship, then I am afraid your SA citizenship was lost by virtue of taking up the other citizenships, you passport will be cancelled and you should request a letter from the consulate indicating that you citizenship was revoked. Given the mess of home affairs when you enter SA you may sometime have issues as they will pick up that you have had a South African passport and ask you why you are not using it, hence the letter will resolve that.
  
• Yes you can say your children and husband are South African.
  

I hope that helps you out.

[andrea_vk]

Just to get back on topic here.

The question being asked was about retention of Citizenship and the forms, not your personal reasons of why somebody would or would not like to keep their citizenship. Unfortunately the process/law is the process.

I completed these form in last year just prior to taking up my Oz citizenship.

From recall, there are 2 forms, you fill in a retention form and this determination of citizenship. (Just to say everytime you apply for a SA passport or ID book you have to do this now.)

The retention of citizenship form you use to declare your interests in taking up the Oz citizenship in your case.

The determination of citizenship form is used to state a whole list of other information.

• Yes date of departure was the date you left South Africa, since you are in Oz you do not have a return date as you are out of the country, leave it blank
  
• Yes you would put the date you got your PR visa as this would have been the date it was activated by Home Affairs as you did not enter SA, you were already here.
  
• No, you do not put Australian citizenship in here, you are not an Australian as of yet. You would put details of any other foreign citizenships you have an how you obtained them, i.e. British by birth. If you have already become Australian or taken on any other citizenships since becoming South African, but have not asked for permission to retain SA citizenship, then I am afraid your SA citizenship was lost by virtue of taking up the other citizenships, you passport will be cancelled and you should request a letter from the consulate indicating that you citizenship was revoked. Given the mess of home affairs when you enter SA you may sometime have issues as they will pick up that you have had a South African passport and ask you why you are not using it, hence the letter will resolve that.
  
• Yes you can say your children and husband are South African.
  

I hope that helps you out.

Nicse

Thank you for that.

Andrea