Renunciation

A friend is at the U.S. Embassy in Bern renouncing her U.S. nationality. Her entire family will soon be ex-Americans.

Her doing it brings back my own memories of my day.

1. The guard yelling at me that I couldn't bring my purse into the embassy
2. Of paying 5 CHF to leave the purse at a nearby bakery
3. Of crying
4. Of vomiting afterwards

It produced two very different emotions: a tremendous sadness and greater relief. I could now have a bank account and lead a normal financial life. No longer would I worry which new act in Congress would threaten me with huge fines that would ruin me financially if I didn't discover this or that form that had to be filled out.

I often compared renunciation to a divorce.

American expats when they are together most often talk about renunciation, not because we are anti-American but because we live outside our birth country and we want to do simple things like have a bank account, be able to get a loan, save for retirement and even make an investment, none of which we can do thanks to FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). The U.S. decided that expats were all rich and most were
1. Money launderers
2. Tax evaders
3. Sex traffickers
4. Drug dealers

I never chose any of the above as a profession. I don't even know any of the above among my expat friends.

When I appeared before Congress in April 2017, along with others, we were told that was what expats were to our faces. One of us was a U.S. Veteran. He had brought his old uniform to the hearing and it was in front of him as he faced the panel of congress people.

Worse, we weren't paying U.S. taxes so they bullied banks, investment houses, insurance companies, pension funds of reporting all American expat clients or face huge penalties. The result was the organizations simply closed American accounts. The U.S. and Eritrea are the only two countries on the planet that requires U.S. Citizens and Green card holders to pay taxes on everything they earn world wide. This also is the case with children born in the U.S. but never live there or only lived there for a short time.

Don't talk to me about anchor babies. Any parent that has a child for an American passport and the child will not live there for the rest of his or her life is cursing that child with financial hell.

Because of FATCA people found themselves suddenly having to pay off mortgages or unable to have their paychecks deposited, their debit and credit cards cancelled. This was true all over the world.

Their alternatives were to return to the States, or if they had a second nationality, to renounce. This is what my friend and her family chose. Her husband had already lost many opportunities for good jobs simply because he was American and the companies were too afraid of the consequences of employing an American.

I wish her a smooth renunciation.