We’re not so much keeping busy these days as unavoidably being kept busy. Honestly, who would have thought that retirement could be so much work?
Sarah and I have been busy trying to prepare our Dutch and American taxes. Given the fact that we have both been resident in two countries during the last fiscal year, can no longer file a joint return in America as in previous years (due to my partial resident status for last year), liquidated lots of stock, have bank accounts in multiple currencies and places, purchased a house, etc., our taxes are really quite complicated this year.
Add to that the fact that we’re missing or have incomplete documentation in some cases, especially around the period of our international move, and you have the basis for some very time-consuming and tedious work, e-mailing and phoning people for the missing data and trying to make sense of all manner of forms and statements.
Also, because our situation is no longer easily classified, none of the tax forms we have to fill in are fully applicable, so we keep having to annotate things and explain our unique circumstances. You end up wondering if the return you end up filing will make any sense or even be accurate.
In the midst of this, we’re also trying to sort out our estate planning once and for all. Estate planning is the financial world’s soothing euphemism for getting one’s affairs in order before one pops one’s clogs. Not that we’re planning to shuffle off this mortal coil in the near future, but very few people do, which is precisely the reason one needs to spend time on this stuff while one is still of relatively sound mind and something approaching sound body.
Dealing with the estate planning is as tedious as dealing with the accountants, and as complicated, too. Marriage to a foreigner with lifelong tax obligations to the country from which she happens to hail can really complicate your life. And Eloïse, too, is an American citizen by dint of her mother’s nationality, which further complicates our estate planning, as no money can be deposited in her name unless we’re prepared to pay tax to the US on any interest it earns.
Want my advice? Don’t marry a foreigner, especially an American, unless you’re up for a shitload of hassle, trying to prevent a greedy foreign government from staking a claim to assets to which it has no moral right. Of course, even if Sarah and I hadn’t been married, Eloïse would still be American, because she was born in the United States.
American citizenship is viral, you see. It’s like a hereditary disease. As soon as you start to earn money abroad, the tumour begins to grow. The only known cure is the abandonment of one’s citizenship, which still leaves you with a 10 year fiscal obligation. That’s the price of freedom, folks; you pay for it the rest of your days, even if you’re a dissident in some far flung part of the world. Well, you’re obliged to pay it, that is; whether or not you actually do so depends on your stance and the amount of bone marrow in your spine.
Basically, though, you can’t marry an American without marrying the American tax system.