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Renunciation | |
February 03rd, 2024 | |
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On Feb 2, 2024 I formally renounced my US citizenship at the US | |
Embassy in Reykjavik Iceland. | |
It's been a while coming. In fact, I knew this was something | |
I wanted to strongly consider before we left the country. I had | |
rough plans for ~5 years abroad, and it happened at 4.7 years. | |
Pretty accurate! | |
I started the formal process back in October when I notified the | |
embassy of my intentions. There were some back and forth emails | |
and I eventually received an appointment date. I had to fill out | |
a lot of repetitive forms, have a phone call that repeated what | |
was on the forms, and finally have the in-person appointment where | |
it was all repeated again. | |
Once the forms and signing were done I got to stand up in front of | |
a flag I was literally telling these people I don't care about and | |
I got to say a formal oath of un-American-ing. Or something. It | |
was very bazaar. Like, who was the oath for exactly? They didn't | |
record it or anything. It was so performative. | |
Speaking of performative, the consular officer I met with was | |
pretty creepy, in that Stepford Wives sort of way. She had | |
a really fake pleasant thing going on, and offered up small talk | |
that was not really small talk. She kept asking questions, "just | |
out of curiosity," which were obviously designed to probe me about | |
my reasoning. Which was strange, since they literally ask about | |
the reasoning. | |
Why do they do that? Well, there's one very special provision in | |
the middle of all the lists. It says something to the effect of, | |
"If the Attorney General decides you are doing this for tax | |
avoidance you can be banned from entering the US." I think the | |
questions were to see if that was my reasoning. | |
Thankfully, that's not my reason! My reason is that America is | |
a shitbag. It was founded on racism, has been responsible for | |
countless atrocities even before its founding, continues to impose | |
horrible ethics upon the world at the end of a gun, and | |
indoctrinates its people in a cult of self delusion. But yeah, | |
getting taxed as an expat is pretty annoying too. Not that I avoid | |
it, it's just annoying. | |
So yeah, I'm done! It's both official and not official. It's | |
official in all the ways that count outside the US. It's not | |
official yet in the US as that requires them to do some absurd | |
amount of paperwork or something and it'll take months. Right now | |
I don't have my passport because they took it, but it technically | |
is still issued and valid. So in a few months when I fly through | |
the US with my Italian passport and an ESTA, I risk a border | |
patrol agent deciding that's interesting enough to make my day | |
horrible. I don't really have any recourse, but then again that | |
could have happened for no reason at all. That's how America rolls | |
for anyone with a badge. ACAB, bitches. | |
Oh! It cost me $2,300 to renounce. That's a nice little extra | |
bullshit on top, isn't it? Whatever. It's done. I'm free. No, not | |
like in America, actually free. | |
I'm an Italian citizen, though I've never lived in Italy and | |
haven't spent a total of a full month in the country in my life. | |
I'd like to spend more time there eventually. We've been | |
discussing that in the 6-8 year timeframe it would be great to buy | |
a flat in Italy to spend our winters. Wit will be out of school by | |
then so it shouldn't create schedule problems. I work remotely, so | |
as long as we find some place with decent internet it will be | |
great. And lets face it, Iceland is amazing, but it sucks monkey | |
butt in January and February. | |
So yeah, I'll get around to brushing up on my Italian and we'll | |
look into splitting up the year. Who knows, maybe when I'm ready | |
to retire I'll like that more than Iceland (I doubt it). Then | |
again, I really love it here. I have about 2 and a half more years | |
before I can apply for citizenship here. That will bring my | |
passport count back up to two! | |
Plans, plans, plans. Sometimes they work out. |