Income Tax Law instructions on Re-entry permit

[sikander]

Dear Friends:

I received my re-entry permit, and at the back of the document in the section titled "Information on Income Tax Laws for Holders of This Travel Document", it says the following:

"Section 6851(d) of Title 26, United States Code provides as follows: 'No alien shall depart from the United States unless he or she first procures from the Secretary or his delegate a certificate that he or she has complied with all the obligations imposed upon him or her by the income tax laws'".

This is the first time I am hearing about this. Is this rule practically enforced? If so, whats the best way to obtain the "ceritificate" mentioned in the quote above?

Thanks in advance.

 

[alassea]

I read this as well, and I actually got such a permit once.
Informally, this is called a "Sailing Permit." Historically, before sailors left port, they had to make sure that all their taxes were paid, since they may not come back alive...
For my GC through Consular Processing, I got such a Sailing Permit. It is easy to get, takes 5 minutes at the IRS office, and the IRS guys were actually quite friendly (my local IRS office is in the same building as the CSC, but on a different floor.)

JoeF,
Nice to see you posting again, welcome back!!! Hope you won't leave the forum again, you're such a big help here.

sikander,
Here's the IRS link to that sailing permit/departing alien clearance JoeF is talking about: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97256,00.html

Hope that helps

 

[sikander]

JoeF and Alassea:
Thank you both for the info. Do you know how long one of these sailing permits is valid for?
Thanks