27. December 2013. Translated by SwissPinoy from annabelle
Alice Neuhaus (27), Photographer, explains: How is it really, to voluntarily discard the US passport?
I only spent the first three years of my life in the USA. As such, discarding US citizenship should be staged emotionless. What can one actually feel for a country in which one did not grow up? When I was still a child, my family moved in a rhythm of every four years, internationally. From this, evolved the question to which country I feel that I belong. I was a dual citizen through the European heritage of my parents and my birth in the USA with both passports being a symbol of my rootlessness.
Nevertheless, the day that I discarded my US citizenship was my saddest. After all, US citizenship was my only nationality for the first 12 years of my life and I was greeted with “welcome home” whenever I travelled to the States. Banal, but this feels good when one is constantly on the move. Having to fill out a form to abandon a part of one’s identity feels like betrayal, like something that is right in the mind but wrong in the heart.
The appointment at the American embassy is led with a 45 minute telephone interview, in which I had to explain why I didn’t want to be an American anymore. The passport, for which I was previously envied, has now become an obstacle. I felt myself as being disadvantaged in Switzerland. It is a current form of racism. Over and over again, I was the objective of principle-rants to the tax dispute between the United States and Switzerland. I was denied banking services because I was required as a US citizen to give information on my financial matters for the purpose of reducing local bank risks. Other dual citizens also have problems finding employment in Switzerland since they are required to report to the US the business accounts that they would manage.
Being required to pay taxes to the US government never bothered me, even though I don’t live there. Yet, the many deadlines, obligations and laws that I was unaware of made me feel insecure and the growing hostility against Americans made me angry. I’m not responsible for American law and its financial system.
The waiting list in Bern to renounce US citizenship is one year. Since I’ll be going to an embassy in a different country, the wait time will be reduced to three months. I read forum contributions by other dual citizens and have had long conversations with Americans living abroad in Switzerland. Each one tells me something differently: One is US taxable seven years after renouncing, another says ten years and again another claims that one would be prohibited from traveling to America. In the meantime, I know two things for sure: If and how long there will be a tax obligation depends upon one’s financial situation. And, I can travel to America like any other tourist.
At the US embassy, patriotism is hanging in the air. Americans are heartily welcomed. I described my concerns to the lady at the counter – and I am no longer a member. It is as if I changed teams with half a sentence. I was questioned by the general consul, paid near 400 Euro and confirmed twice that I was aware of the consequences of this action: All American citizenship rights would be revoked. I’m not allowed to vote in America, cannot stay there indefinitely and am not allowed to work there. Are you sure? The general consul asked.
If I’m not too young to make such a decision? I’m not sure. I live in Switzerland and feel good here. I don’t want to move anywhere. The general consul believed me. That is important because not everyone who wants to renounce is allowed to. The request will be revoked if the belief exists that one is evading taxes or the law. Three months later, the stamped invalid US passport and loss of citizenship papers lay in my mail box. I should feel relieved. Yet, I’m simply sad that I felt forced to decide between the nation where I live and work, and the land where I was born.
This letter sums up how any US Citizen must feel. Betrayed for money is the saddest feeling anyone can have against the country they were born in. Shame on the USA for doing this to it’s people around the world.
It is almost exactly how I feel. I’m glad that Alice recorded my thoughts and that they got published!
Losing my citizenship through bullying is how I felt and it is extremely sad for me. I don’t think I’ll ever feel this situation was in any way justified.
I feel exactly the same way! And what’s even uglier is the fact that many will still never fully believe me and will, at worst, assume I’d renounced for expediency. Others will assume that I’m overly paranoid and simply cannot imagine the US govt treating its own citizens abroad this way.
@Native American
I agree with all you wrote. The writer of the post, Annabelle, described her feelings and why she had no choice so well.
I am waiting for my CLN, it is almost 6 months since I went to the US counsel t request backdated to 1993. . There was another woman there for the same reason I was. I nevered owed US taxes, never making nearly as much as the taxable amount. I did file up the year I became a Canadian citizen and I did my US taxes myself. The huge fees currently asked for now to file US taxes are unaffordable to owe nothing to the IRS. I have lined in Canada over 44 years, have no need to go back to the USA. My parents are dead. My brothers and I no longer have ties. I love traveling and will do so in Canada and the rest of the world. I truly do not have any desire to ever return to the USA. My feelings for that country are sadness on how it has become such a bully.
The juxtaposition of the Consul General’s stamp beside the first words of the Constitution tells it all. Alice isn’t abandoning the US – the US has abandoned her.
While I fully sympathize with Alice, and her mixed emotions, I would simply want to reassure her that her decision truly is for the better. The United States is no longer the country it once was and it is certainly not deserving of the continued fealty of its expats after the way they’ve been treated. It really is like a marriage gone abusive and sour – there may still be some wistful pangs of remembrance of better times, but now it’s over and life must go on. To momentarily borrow the slogan from LGBT youth facing bullying and harassment: It Gets Better.
The US is symbolically ‘burning bridges’ with its own citizens. The US needs its ex-pats to promote trade and links with the US, but Congress and Homelanders are blind to the fact.
The US tax border stops at the US border and people don’t agree with extraterritorial taxation. Watch the US citizenship ‘body count’ to continue to increase throughout 2014.
The mentality of Homelanders was made perfectly clear last week. While on holiday in Florida, a guy in our foursome on the golf course was talking about people giving up their US citizenship for ‘tax advantages.’ Obviously I couldn’t miss the opportunity to put this guy straight. He wouldn’t listen to the other side of the story and dismissed ‘those’ people as traitors. That’s how southerners see the issue. The guy lives in Florida free of state income tax, but how would he feel if his home state of Alabama started to demand taxes from him in Florida? I suspect he’d tell Alabama to stick it.
FATCA will only be repealed by Congress when it starts to hit the US in the pocket.
Thank you, SwissPinoy, for summing up just how I feel. Perhaps I feel a little less sad and a little more angry that I was forced into renouncing. I’m not the least bit sorry I did though as I love Canada.
Thanks for posting this Swisspinoy. Every day I vacillate between standing and fighting for liberty and wanting to run as fast as I can away from the USA!
Thank you for the article. I can see that in the coming years it will be my turn to go through that process, and I know I will feel horrible about it. It is a tragedy that the US government forces expats to make the choice of giving up US citizenship just to be able to have a normal life in the country where we actually live, work and pay taxes for real services provided by the government in our country of residence.
@Steve Klaus
If asked, I don’t think the majority of the people in the US and their government really want to have no diaspora, do you? Having no diaspora leaves the US at a disadvantage over other countries that have them, especially if its diaspora becomes hostile against them – which the US’s clearly is.
America is destroying itself by destroying its citizens abroad.
How do I spell how I feel? R-E-L-I-E-F. People change citizenship all over the world. I don’t buy into the idea that somehow it is more significant to give up US citizenship. I don’t want to dishonour the writer’s feelings, but I do wonder why? You carry your culture with you regardless of your passport. I have lots of friends who came from elsewhere, became Canadians and gave up their original citizenships. I reject the idea that somehow US citizenship is more special and to be given up more reluctantly.
@Islander
I think the issue is how it’s being ‘given up’.
@Islander
I agree. Then again I left when the politics was oppressive in 69. I forgave but I knew Canada was in my heart and soul, so in 1993 I became a proud citizen. Nov 2000 US election results got my guard up and from then on my opinion of the US went downhill , with FATCA the final blow. My relatives hatehd me so there is no loss for me. I realize other Brockers have wonderful families stateside but not me. I embrace my Canadian citizenship which is respected around the world. Waiting for my CLN for almost 6 months now.
In case you didn’t see it in the FATCA question section, there’s a better solution available:
https://bancdelasteroideb612.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/we-used-to-sell-us-citizenship-now-we-sell-non-citizenship-to-us-says-black-marketeer/
“We used to sell US citizenship, now we sell non-US-citizenship” says black marketeer.
@Islander, I think it’s different for everyone in how they feel about their US citizenship. Everyone has different circumstances which led up to their relinquishment/renunciation. I had always considered myself to be American first, then British, but when I found out about FATCA and what was happening here it made me re-consider. I found that my outlook on life was much more British than American. America will always be a part of me, I spent my formative years there, but I don’t think I could move back there and live happily. I don’t “fit” anymore. So while I was sad to give up my citizenship, I’m sure it wasn’t anywhere near the same wrench that others may experience.
American citizenship is put forward as being desirable, there’s no doubt. Plenty of flag-waving and pledges of alligence at all sorts of events. Enough that it gets on my nerves these days, but I thought nothing of it when I was a kid; that’s just the way it was and yes I was proud to join in. You simply don’t see that in other countries, not on the same scale. Whether it’s because the States are “young” compared to European countries I don’t know.
Another factor may be that the majority of Americans have never left their country, even if they’ve travelled from the East coast to the West or North to South. Here in Europe when you go any distance you move into a completely different culture, language, etc. You get the chance to see the differences in a way the Americans don’t unless they go over the border into Mexico. They have nothing else to compare America too.
How the US places their president next to God is what gets to me. When I went though a US airport the other day, I had to laugh when I imagined how it would look if there was a sole picture of Stephen Harper on the wall at customs.
@bubblebustin
Whoever is president is picture and revered . I have seen this all my life
I looked up the pledge of alliance on wiki. I am always fasinated at original Bellamy salute to the flag, change during WWII.
I can see why the change, northernstar.
@ Islander. Not all cultures are equal by any means. That is why for example it is frequently pointed out that the US is keeping such bad company with Eritrea re CBT. FATCA is a betrayal of what is high and noble in the American tradition: Individual rights and freedoms and no “taxation without representation”. It is precisely because America has offered the world so much in holding a torch for freedom on an historically unprecedented scale that many of us are so betrayed by this legislative oppression. American is much more reprehensible than Eritrea because it historically stands for so much. Wanting to identify with what is generous and noble about the US is what causes many of us to feel pangs of regret at the prospect of loss of citizenship.
@Islander said “You carry your culture with you regardless of your passport”. Totally true. I went to Seattle for Christmas eve with my brothers with my new CLN and I was exactly the same person. Did not have my car searched (this has happened many times before). Maybe it was my fresh outlook.
@northernstar: 6 months is getting to be a bit long, maybe the holidays delayed things.
I think I can empathize with this writer’s situation but I have to twist everything around to really put myself in her shoes. I have to imagine that I’m not living in Canada anymore and that Canada has betrayed me in exactly the same way as the USA has betrayed its expats. I have to let that sink in and then imagine if it would be difficult to renounce my Canadian citizenship. Okay done. Answer. No. I doubt that I would ever forgive that betrayal but the initial strong feelings would fade in the passage of time … feelings usually do. I am certain however that I would never return to Canada after renouncing. Canada would have demonstrated to me that it didn’t value me in anyway, except as a pocket to pick. I would not go back to a country that had treated me this way, not even for a visit. Losing my Canadian citizenship could not take away my memories of living there. Losing my Canadian citizenship could not take away whatever the country had contributed to making me whatever it is I am. These things cannot be revoked by a piece of paper stamped CLN.
Here is a pertinent quote from the late, great historian and political philosopher Tony Judt:
“The United States is the least globalized of all the developed states. … [M]ost Americans don’t actually experience life as international … The United States therefore remains mired in a series of myopic considerations, even though it is still the only world power and exercises huge military leverage across the globe. There is a disjuncture between the domestic politics and the international capacities of the United States which was simply not the case for any of the great powers of the past.”
— Tony Judt (with Timothy Snyder), “Thinking the Twentieth Century”, Penguin Books, 2012.
So, like a myopic rhinoceros, it charges unpredictably when it feels threatened, inflicting damage mostly out of ignorance. Though it may feel sad, it’s safest for us expats to get away and stay away from it.
In order to forgive someone, a few things need to happen. First of all, the person/entity that has caused the harm must take responsibility for what they’ve done. Secondly, they must repent their actions. Thirdly, they must make restitution, not always possible, but at least to the best of their ability.
I think all we can hope for at this point (if we venture to hope at all) is that they’ll just stop the onslaught.
@AnonAnon
Dinosaur is good too, because of its size and inability to adapt.