Brin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brin_bellway) wrote2019-05-13 11:17 am
brin_bellway) wrote2019-05-13 11:17 am
(no subject)
[cw: poverty, first-world problems, government bullshit]
So, uh, my brother was looking stuff up and apparently if you're non-rich the fee for renouncing U.S. citizenship is only about USD$2,300.
I am...very conflicted about how to react to that idea. It's...things would be so much easier, so much *simpler*, if I weren't a U.S. citizen. I could just...invest? like a normal person? without it being a fucking minefield of tax-law clusterfucks?
(I never actually posted that earlier draft, did I. The one complaining about how my meta-boss accidentally attached my wages for one shift to the paycheque *after* the one it was supposed to be on, and I couldn't even really be annoyed at him because my current time value of money is *zero*, so what does it fucking matter if I don't get it as quickly as I should. Let him hold onto it for an extra fortnight, maybe he can actually put it to some good fucking use.)
There *are* possible futures where having U.S. citizenship has strong upsides. But in almost *every* future--indeed, in the present--it has moderate downsides. And the possible futures with the strong upsides aren't among the more likely futures.
So, uh, my brother was looking stuff up and apparently if you're non-rich the fee for renouncing U.S. citizenship is only about USD$2,300.
I am...very conflicted about how to react to that idea. It's...things would be so much easier, so much *simpler*, if I weren't a U.S. citizen. I could just...invest? like a normal person? without it being a fucking minefield of tax-law clusterfucks?
(I never actually posted that earlier draft, did I. The one complaining about how my meta-boss accidentally attached my wages for one shift to the paycheque *after* the one it was supposed to be on, and I couldn't even really be annoyed at him because my current time value of money is *zero*, so what does it fucking matter if I don't get it as quickly as I should. Let him hold onto it for an extra fortnight, maybe he can actually put it to some good fucking use.)
There *are* possible futures where having U.S. citizenship has strong upsides. But in almost *every* future--indeed, in the present--it has moderate downsides. And the possible futures with the strong upsides aren't among the more likely futures.