Sockhopper
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- Nov 16, 2008
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After Oprah reported that she’d felt disrespected because a clerk in a posh Zurich shop didn't know that she belonged to the richest 1% of people who could afford a ridiculously expensive bag, she told the press that she was in Switzerland attending Tina Turner's wedding there. (Tina renounced her US citizenship this year and then in July married her European live-in partner of the past 27 years. I presume she did both so as to escape being subject to US taxation. She’d once said while living with this man that she’d never remarry anybody.)
The US is unique for taxing even people who as American babies left the US, grew up in and became citizens of a foreign country and who’ve never returned to the US. Basing taxation on citizenship rather than upon residency fails to recognize the reality and significance of a person’s own life choices. It thus penalizes those who exercise their freedom of choice this way. To me, a non-American, it renders being a US citizen rather artificial by making it a label rather than a tangibly felt attachment. No wonder then that many immigrants to the US seek US citizenship as a commodity to obtain.
The US is unique for taxing even people who as American babies left the US, grew up in and became citizens of a foreign country and who’ve never returned to the US. Basing taxation on citizenship rather than upon residency fails to recognize the reality and significance of a person’s own life choices. It thus penalizes those who exercise their freedom of choice this way. To me, a non-American, it renders being a US citizen rather artificial by making it a label rather than a tangibly felt attachment. No wonder then that many immigrants to the US seek US citizenship as a commodity to obtain.