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---------------------------------------- Renunciation February 03rd, 2024 ---------------------------------------- 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.