Thanks for your story and perspective, @YankInNewZealand. For New Zealand, I agree, I would not even think about NZ going to war with the US (or anyone, for that matter). However, those folks I bite my tongue around are from Russia, China and Brazil, not yet another English speaking, post- British colonial 5 Eyes entity like the US and all the others you mentioned. You picked a pretty easy place to settle into, especially with that reciprocal tax agreement.
A nod to you and the other folks who picked up on my comment about spouses and religions. Might indeed be false equivalence, but in my mind, it’s kinda along the same lines (not congruent, but kinda sorta close).
Anyway, despite the attempts here so far, multi citizenship still feels like some kind of cognitive dissonance that I just can’t get past.
My wife and I thought about doing this. I don’t remember which Caribbean nation it was. Barbados, maybe. It was cheaper. Maybe $25k. The advantage to us was that she’d now have a passport that she could travel on that didn’t require getting visas. Her current citizenship isn’t exactly friendly for international travel.
Well how about this. Sometimes life happens and you end up living in another country for an extended or possibly open ended (maybe forever) amount of time. If you try to do this on a temporary visa then you will need to pay to extend your stay (some places that can be a monthly fee after the allowed vacation period ends), periodical you must also leave the country for a period of time which is yet more money and time.
There are other ways to become a permanent resident in a country other than getting dual citizenship which isn’t even possible in some countries. But the general need of people staying long periods in other countries to in some way say officially they are going be there for a long time is not bonkers.
Btw, I’m not defending this vlogger. She seems to be sketchy. But I don’t think her issues should be projected to everyone living in a country other than their birth.
It occurs to me something that might be going on here:
As others have said, US passport holder, the bank is required to report to the US (or, in many cases, will simply refuse you, period. Washington’s attempts to track hidden money have been quite a pain to law-abiding expats)
If she presents another passport, though, they’re not going to go reporting the account to the IRS. So long as she never brings the money to the US there’s almost no way the IRS will catch her. (However, going public with this probably put her on their radar!)
Dual citizenship is often useful for travel. There are many countries where I just prefer not to use my US passport.
For instance, I went to India on a trip that was part of a project against gender based violence funded by a US State Department grant. Because the US govt was paying for the trip, I thought, mistakenly, that it was best for me to use my US passport when requesting my visa for India. After the visa processor had my US passport for over a month and we were just two weeks out from my travel dates, I kind of freaked out. I then rescinded my application for a visa on my US passport, and put in a new application on my Israeli passport. The visa application on my Israeli passport was approved in 24 hours and I had my US and Israeli passports back in my hands within a couple of days.
For the record, the visa application for India asks if you have another citizenship than the one that you are using to apply for that visa. I answered truthfully on both applications. Being an Israeli citizen did not make my visa go faster when sending my US passport, and being a US citizen did not make my visa go slower when sending my Israeli passport. I suspect that the time it takes to get a visa to go to India if you use a US passport is an act of retribution against the US for making it so difficult for Indian nationals to travel to the US.
How so? A person can have deep meaningful ties to various countries. Ultimately there is always an answer to “What country do you have the most loyalty to?” but that misses the entire point of a person’s background. I have dual citizenship to the US and Venezuela, i am US born and i have no doubt in my mind that i am loyal to this country but in no way would i renounce my Venezuelan citizenship because its part of who I am, my family and my heritage, and i’m proud of it despite how shitty things are there and how bad the politics has been there.
Well stated, Grey_Devil. I also have deep meaningful ties to both countries:
For the US: Family, of course. Maintaining my US passport (and citizenship) means I can travel back to the US easily. I maintain a US credit card and bank account (again, for the purposes of travel costs). And, as I stated up thread, I take my responsibility to vote in US elections and filing my tax returns and bank account reporting requirements very seriously.
Now, for New Zealand: Nine years ago the man I moved here with (another Yank) and I separated. I hooked up with a very nice Kiwi bloke and his family always made me feel like part of the family. Also being here nearly 15 years and living here, just FEELS right. Me and the other Mr. YankInNewZealand would never move to the US because we’re just happy living here. (Also, just getting him residency would be just too much trouble for a 55 and 61 year old to put up with.) Getting gay-married(*) is not an option because that would subject him to the onerous US tax and bank account reporting requirements.
So, if I had to quantify it, I would say my loyalties are 80/20. That’s 80 for NZ and 20 for US if you hadn’t guessed.
Yes, I know it’s really just “marriage” not “gay-marriage”. I just like to say it ironically.
Maybe it will be worth trying again some time in the future? Polish bureaucracy was known for being hostile and for making things unnecessarily difficult, but things are getting better each year, mostly because of older officials, who remember days of previous regime, retiring. The most important benefits are free higher education and possibility of living and working anywhere in EU.
She did say that the guy in charge of the process was an “old school communist bureaucrat”. She has since moved to AZ and isn’t in the same position to really deal with the paper work again (she had to make trips to St Louis). That and the relationship between her and her daughter (and granddaughter) has become more… distant.
But yes, my thinking was if she had Polish citizenship, it would open up opportunities in the EU, and who doesn’t like extra opportunities?
ETA - I even gave up my original copy of my birth certificate for this process. No dice.
Plenty of people are dual citizens through birth. For example my daughter is British and Japanese, thanks to her parents.
My brother and sister-in-law are both dual US-UK citizens.
The obvious advantage is that they can live, work and claim social security in both countries equally easily, and don’t need visas to get in. Also, FWIW the Japanese passport is the best in the world for easy entry to other countries.
There isn’t much of a downside, but obviously that depends on which countries you are a citizen of. The main one is that your one citizenship can’t protect you from obligations imposed by your other citizenship.
In terms of cognitive dissonance, I don’t think dual-citizens by birth have any. I don’t think they feel they are not citizens of somewhere else, they feel they are citizens of more of the world. I’m finding it hard to explain. I mean they feel an expansion of their identity, rather than a dilution.
Also, I suspect your visa fees were different as well. I know several countries charge Americans something like $150 for a visa simply because that’s what the American government charges their citizens, whereas everyone else gets charged something like $20.
