citizenship Archives - Rachel's Ruminations

Indignation Fatigue and FATCA

Rachel Heller — Fri, 20 May 2016 14:48:31 +0000

A lawsuit against FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, was filed back in 2014 by Senator Rand Paul and the Republicans Overseas and, while I am certainly no fan of the senator, I support this lawsuit. It was, however, dismissed in April 2016 because the Ohio federal judge who heard the case decided that...

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On Receiving my Certificate of Loss of Nationality

Rachel Heller — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 19:28:27 +0000

Almost five months after my renunciation day, I received my Certificate of Loss of Nationality today. It seems ironic that it arrived on Tax Day. People keep asking me how that feels, but I have trouble formulating an answer. This certificate = divorce papers The best analogy I’ve been able to find is that renouncing...

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Vote … as a Non-Citizen? Really?

Rachel Heller — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 15:24:18 +0000

On my return from a short vacation with my family, I was surprised to find a letter from the Department of Elections of the City of San Francisco waiting for me, offering me the opportunity to vote in the Democratic primary. Before I moved to the Netherlands back in 1997, I lived in San Francisco, so San...

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Citizenship Matters

Rachel Heller — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 15:28:28 +0000

I am, legally speaking, a citizen of the Netherlands. If you asked the US Foreign Service, they’d probably say I have US citizenship too, at least until I get my Certificate of Loss of Nationality. If you asked the IRS, on the other hand, they would say I’m no longer a US citizen. What does it mean...

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Individual Freedom, Self-Reliance and Renunciation

Rachel Heller — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 15:21:45 +0000

I teach American Studies at a teacher-training college here in the Netherlands. The eight-week courses—two for the younger, full-time students, and one for the adult, part-time students—are not in-depth studies. They are introductory courses for students training to become English teachers. One of my goals is to prepare them for the sorts of questions their...

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FATCA, the Tea Party and Me

Rachel Heller — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 15:46:22 +0000

“No taxation without representation,” a slogan going back to colonial America, is commonly cited by overseas Americans like me in discussions of FATCA. It’s also the basis of the Tea Party’s name: a reference to the Boston Tea Party, an act of rebellion against the taxation of the American colonists by the British government. FATCA...

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My Renunciation Day

Rachel Heller — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 18:50:35 +0000

I renounced my US citizenship today. Right now, I don’t want to discuss the politics, but rather just let you know what my day was like. Note: This article was published on November 18, 2015. Getting there Like any good Dutch resident, I got to Amsterdam by first riding my bike to the train station...

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How my citizenship hit me in the gut

Rachel Heller — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 17:08:35 +0000

One day last month, when I was walking through Oakland on my way to meet a friend in Berkeley, I passed the old Paramount Theater. This is a gorgeous restored Art Deco theater that I had paused to admire every time I’d walked past that week. That day, though, the theater was open at 8:30...

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Republicans, Expatriates and FATCA

Rachel Heller — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 11:13:28 +0000

Last week I posted about the possibility of renouncing my American citizenship due to the onerous requirements the US government imposes on expatriate Americans. That post broke the record here at Rachel’s Ruminations: the most “hits” ever. And, in the process, I’ve learned a lot more about the situation from the many people who responded,...

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Giving up US citizenship?

Rachel Heller — Sun, 21 Sep 2014 12:59:19 +0000

For several years, I’ve been thinking about giving up my American citizenship. This is not an act of disloyalty or of protest, I hasten to add. I admit there have been moments – when George W. Bush was reelected, for example – when I was angry enough to repudiate my nationality in protest. But I...

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