Posted on 03/11/2014 9:07:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
3,000 Americans around the world renounced their citizenship last year. Meet five U.S. citizens who have given up their passports -- or are thinking about it -- to escape an overly complicated tax code.
I threw up after renouncing
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Donna-Lane NelsonName: Donna-Lane Nelson, 71
Lives in: Geneva, Switzerland
I renounced my U.S. citizenship in 2011. After I did it, I was so emotional that I threw up outside the embassy.
During my renunciation, I broke down. It was like getting a divorce. America gave me my education, a good career path, and I came from a beautiful part of the country. This was very hard.
Before I took the last oath, I asked if I could change my mind. The embassy worker said maybe, with official permission. But I still went through with it.
My decision to renounce was triggered when my bank threatened to close my account because I was American. What would I do without a bank? Americans in Switzerland were having trouble with their investments, getting credit cards, and some weren't even getting loans.
I've been in Switzerland since 1990, and became a citizen in 2005, because I wanted the right to vote where I was living. The Swiss can tell I have an American accent, and I'm often explaining that I grew up in the U.S. and have a daughter who still lives in the Boston area.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I'm fatalistic about my own future... like I said, I know what awaits me when it all goes south. It beats dying a slow, agonizing death from cancer or some other ailment, so there is a silver lining.
Nor do I, that is my point.
It was/is up to us to ensure they do and to this we have apparently failed.
Perhaps... Perhaps not.
I do not think that things are quite over yet, and there has not yet been resistance unto bloodshed
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Agree.
“We’re better off without them.”
1. We are replacing people with skills and money with immigrants with neither.
2. What makes America unique isn’t the land. It is the Constitution and the ideas of America. Those are eroding as fast as sand on a beach - and not RINOpublican nor Demoncrat care.
3. I imagine that Jews in Germany as Hitler took power were quite patriotic.
4. Most of my ancestors fled oppressive governments or religious authorities.
5. I believe that given the level of government control of us, the ridiculous number of laws that make us all felons, the unsustainable debt and the crony capitalism that ruin our system further daily, the odds of returning to a PURE Constitution of liberty is growing dim. I will fight until then, but I wonder if we have jumped the shark already. We no longer even have a fare primary, according to what Mitt RINOmney was told by the R party.
The wise German Jews did just that 75-80 years ago.
“It’s the renunciation of being an American - and all that it took our people to even MAKE THAT APPELLATION HAPPEN - and the knowingly saying “the Hell with it - I’m outta here”.
“That is what is so offensive to me.
And yet every American that founded our country and most who populated it did just that - left their country for very good reasons. They didn’t appear here spontaneously. They are your ancestors. They did what you now condemn. Their actions offend you. You are here because they did exactly what offends you now.
All mine too, btw.
1. We are replacing people with skills and money with immigrants with neither.
"We" aren't doing anything. "They're" running away to some place they think is "safe". If the Leftards succeed in taking us down, NOWHERE is safe. I reiterate: we ARE better off without people who have neither the stomach, nor the love of Country if it comes to a brawl.
2. What makes America unique isn’t the land. It is the Constitution and the ideas of America. Those are eroding as fast as sand on a beach - and not RINOpublican nor Demoncrat care.
Correct. But not all Republicans are RINOs and not ALL Democrats are communist pieces of sh*t. There are people here - right in YOUR hometown probably - who you can talk with, work with, get active with. The idea of Liberty crosses party lines. It's more prevalent than you think. The other side controls the communications to a degree - but YOU have a voice, and a cellphone, and a pen - and an Internet forum. DO something with it. If you're a gunny, go become an Instructor and TEACH people how to shoot, teach kids, teach women, teach the elderly. DO something with it. Sitting here feeling helpless is EXACTLY what the other side wants you to do.
".3. I imagine that Jews in Germany as Hitler took power were quite patriotic.
Yes, they probably were. "Law-abiding", too. Right up until the point where the law was used to murder them. We have history to look back on and KNOW that "NEVER AGAIN" MEANS NEVER AGAIN. If every Jewish family had a Mauser rifle and a few hundred rounds of 7.92mm ammunition - and the will to shoot the m*therf*ckers in the face when they came for them - the Holocaust would never have happened, and all those cute little SS, Gestapo, and LOCAL LEO volunteers with their snappy uniforms would find themselves suddenly without ANY desire to stare down a muzzle.
4. Most of my ancestors fled oppressive governments or religious authorities.
So did mine. Both sides. They came HERE. My family has shed blood and lost people for this Country. My old man lay in the snow in the Ardennes with a whole bunch of little holes in him, and some Wermacht Landser took ANOTHER shot at him as he lay there, and grazed him. A few months later, his older brother - one of my uncles - was busy trying to extricate himself from under a Jeep when a Japanese soldier bayonetted him (he lived) on Okinawa. My old man, my uncles, - along with tens of thousands of other American kids - did that for ME - and for you, and for every other one of us here today, so WE could have the things he had. I owe him, and them.
Your history is as an American. There IS nowhere else. MY history is American; I'm as Native as it comes. And to give it up is to spit on all that came before us. Not happening.
We've had a good life for a long time. That doesn't come without a bill. And every once in a while, that bill comes due. No generation is immune from it. It just gets put off until it can't be put off anymore. If that time is now, well, that's what God in His wisdom put YOU and me, and every other poor working slob who loves this Country here for. Every man jack and woman jackie who looks up at their flag, chokes up, and says "Thank you Lord, for making me American."
"Freedom Isn't Free"... that's not a quote that we should ever take for granted. You are ONLY as free as what you are willing to FIGHT for.
5. I believe that given the level of government control of us, the ridiculous number of laws that make us all felons....the odds of returning to a PURE Constitution of liberty is growing dim.
True that. So we give up? Nope. Glenn Beck's 9-12 Project put over a million people on the Mall in DC. The WWII Veterans Memorial episode had hundreds of thousands showing up, Patriot Riders, Truckers, men, women, ordinary folks showing up, pissed off and ready to FIGHT to get those gentlemen to see their monument one last time before they left the Earth.
So Leviathan is here... okay. Big deal. Leviathan bleeds too. If it bleeds, it can be stopped. Find what makes it bleed.
Be that as it may, they came to BE Americans, to create something that didn't exist. They came to a hostile land, and made it something it wasn't. They built the best system of government so far seen on this Earth.
I'm here because I was born here, as were my parents, and my roots are here, my love and all I hold dear is here, in this soil. And to renounce it is just beyond offensive, after so many died to make it possible.
And yes, I will condemn any who run away. That's their choice, and it is a part of Freedom... but it's freedom that other men paid for with their lives.
“”We” aren’t doing anything.”
We as in Uncle Sam. It/He/We oppress Americans.
“They’re” running away to some place they think is “safe”.”
Not so. Almost all are already living great lives where they’ve chose to live, but their government back home makes the cost of being an American so great that they are forced to choose. Other countries are smart enough not to do that.
“If the Leftards succeed in taking us down, NOWHERE is safe.”
Have you looked around lately? Safe is relative. Safe is in flux historically and always has been.
Safe is where your government doesn’t get up each day trying to figure out how to make you a criminal or how to subvert your Constitutional rights, or how to seize your assets, or how to subvert your privacy, etc. Most world governments outside Europe and America are too incompetent and underfunded to do all this. Our country is feeding on high octane fuel like it’s a race.
“I reiterate: we ARE better off without people who have neither the stomach, nor the love of Country if it comes to a brawl. “
Maybe. Maybe not.
“But not all Republicans are RINOs and not ALL Democrats are communist pieces of sh*t.”
Oh, not immediately. Once they get in office they all go native.
“We have history to look back on and KNOW that “NEVER AGAIN” MEANS NEVER AGAIN. “
It will happen against a populace that cooperates.
“The WWII Veterans Memorial episode had hundreds of thousands showing up, Patriot Riders, Truckers, men, women, ordinary folks showing up, pissed off and ready to FIGHT to get those gentlemen to see their monument one last time before they left the Earth.”
Protesting is not the same as showing up to fight. Don’t kid yourself.
” I’m here because I was born here, as were my parents, and my roots are here, my love and all I hold dear is here, in this soil. And to renounce it is just beyond offensive, after so many died to make it possible.”
The same can be said of everyone in every country. They were born there, as were their parents, and their roots are there and they love it all. Things change. Hundreds of millions have been relocated for every reason under the sun.
“And yes, I will condemn any who run away.”
It is an ignorant and uninformed view, but we are Americans and most days you still have the right of free expression.
“That’s their choice, and it is a part of Freedom... but it’s freedom that other men paid for with their lives.”
We agree on that.
Okay, so we’ll just quit then... it’s over. Take the ball, go home...
“...Protesting is not the same as showing up to fight. Don’t kid yourself...”
I have no illusions whatsoever.
“Okay, so we’ll just quit then... it’s over. Take the ball, go home...”
Loser talk.
“...It is an ignorant and uninformed view...”
Call it what you will. It doesn’t change my mind.
We’ll agree to disagree.
“...loser talk....”
Clearly. Should I have put the /sarc tag on it?
The cowards will be on their knees begging for America’s help. Americans living abroad will instantly be designated as an A+ desirable target by the muzzies when the SHTF. Of course now that our cowardly alex has informed, (via a recent post by him), one and all that he pounds down a full bottle of wine a day...........he might not feel a thing when the muzzie’s ‘slice and dice’ allah ackbar jazz starts! Oh yeah....WHERE IS THE QUOTE LIAR? (C’mon alex, where is it??)
Revenue.
As in taxes.
As in what most, if not all, of the people in the story were trying to avoid paying to a United States government they felt had no right to their overseas earnings. And even when they were in a mind to comply with the controlling US law, they found that the personal financial cost to them for complying with the law was excessive. So each of them made what seemed to be a very emotionally-charged decision - to "renounce" their American citizenship in order to avoid what they felt was an undue financial burden in order to comply with American tax law.
A couple of grand or so just to FILE a US tax return? Five figures just to sort out tax issues with a lawyer? You have to be kidding me. For many, that's financially prohibitive, I'd imagine.
You've done a hell of a job on this thread playing the part of the interwebs pamphleteer, Tom Paine, as have your club cronies, but I think you're (purposefully) conflating this into an issue of patriotism vs. non-patriotism. Each person in the story was deeply conflicted over renouncing their citizenship. Each person, in his or her heart, felt "American," but couldn't fiscally afford being an American overseas because of American tax law.
From where I stand, fewer tax dollars flowing to the monolithic beast that is the federal government is a good thing. The best way to kill a tumor is to cut off its blood supply.
Quit being so dramatic.
I'm not talking about teaching in the formal sense, but teaching by setting an example, such as flying the flag outside our homes properly, at every opportunity. I'm talking about writing op-eds in the local paper, and calling into the local talk show, espousing the greatness of America. I'm talking about not standing idly by when you hear some hipster halfwit bashing America at the local coffee shop. Instead, jump in and bite his head off...in the sense that you loudly and publicly defend America and make the little twit look like what he is...a little twit with pipe cleaner arms and a beard that needs to be set fire to. Just don't actually do that last part.
We are the reason our fellow Americans have lost faith in our nation. We've failed them, and we've failed our forefathers. We've allowed this to happen, by just standing by and expecting others to do the heavy lifting for us. But they're not going to...we have to save this Republic ourselves. We can do it, if we get cracking right now.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
As an expat for the last 14 years, I have never met another expat that gave up their US citizenship, and I have no idea why one would, unless the government was after them for tax.
I started my expat life in central Europe, learning more about how life had been under Communism. In 2009 I was ready for new pastures, and headed for the Philippines.
I live among the highest population of US expats as anywhere in the world, I do not know of a single one that hates the US, has other passports, or evading taxes. They, like myself, hate what is happening to America under a Marxist president, who, do not forget, was RE-elected.
We also explain to others what is happening in America, and why Obama is such a disaster. Few foreigners have any clue as to what is happening there.
We also enjoy seeing the world, and living new and interesting lives with far less money then we would need in the states. There is no way that I could live back there on Social Security, alone. That is probably why Walmart has only elderly greeters.
The frequent claims that you are staying to “fight” is just an empty word. There is nothing you can do but vote, and you have been outvoted, not to mention the rapid increase of minority and immigrant population. Traditional American’s will soon be outnumbered.
It is interesting to hear those of you who are stocking up on guns and ammo. It should be real interesting when you start a civil war. The last one was not very pretty.
The FR “dog in a manger’ gang hates my guts. They they are vile, childish, and hate-filled because we do not feel their pain. I no longer even read their hate and profanity. They are famous for taking my post out of context with their outright lies.
If I did not love America, why would I have been a daily reader, financial contributor, and poster on FR for the last 15 years?
Do not forget, America was founded by others who left their home countries.
Are the founding fathers also to be scorned?
I am one who can say, I did not leave my country. My country left me.
RE: , I have never met another expat that gave up their US citizenship, and I have no idea why one would, unless the government was after them for tax.
Did you read the profile of the 5 in this article? All of their reasons were TAX related.
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