Any reason to not get UK/EU citizenship?

[HardRJones]

Are there any reasons for someone who is eligible for UK and EU nation citizenships (let’s say something like Italy, for the sake of approximate specificity) by ancestry to not get these citizenships? Assume US citizenship and no other citizenships or residencies at the moment. Conventional wisdom says the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, but are there any contrarian views?

 

[daniels27]

If your alternative is US, you cannot lose much. You already have global taxation, hence not much risk by getting global taxation by France and UK.

 

[KJK]

Mandatory military service in Greece, Estonia, Croatia, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania (each different and can be avoided to some extent)

Exit tax and worldwide citizenship-based taxation plans/ideas in France and Denmark

Dual citizenship not allowed in some situations in Slovakia, Austria and Slovenia.

Italian citizenship probably has only benefits for you and no negatives.

 

[redeye]

If I were you, I’d start looking into better countries to get citizenship in, places where taxes are still low (at least for now), and where there’s a bit more freedom to actually run a business without getting taxed to death before it even gets off the ground.

There are countries like Cyprus, Maltha, Switzerland, Moldova, Romania, Italy (apparently, according to what’s written, can’t say for sure), and Liechtenstein, especially if you’ve already got a bit of wealth to start with.

 

[HardRJones]

I’m already all in on both Italian and UK processes. Read the tea leaves and started the Italian process well before the current changes. I wanted to see if there were any contrarian viewpoints. It seems like the biggest risk would be UK implementing global taxation but given how the Labour government backed off of some of the non-dom changes, the risk there seems very minimal. I’ll post the detailed processes and experiences once completed, if anyone cares.

 

[daniels27]

@HardRJones wow cool. Yes, keep us posted. What is your status in the UK? There are too many options and they keep changing the law. You hand a British parent be descent that lives in UK?

 

[HardRJones]

@HardRJones wow cool. Yes, keep us posted. What is your status in the UK? There are too many options and they keep changing the law. You hand a British parent be descent that lives in UK?

The Italian one is a standard court case filed for the maternal line under the citizenship law of 1948. That process is simple but lengthy. You gather official documents (birth certificate, marriage certificate, and naturalization certificates) for each ancestor back to the last ancestor born in Italy, get them with apostille (except for the Italian documents), and engage an Italian attorney to file the case in an Italian court. Mine was filed a while ago and so is exempted from the recent decreto legge that restricted those laws. Once the ruling is received I’ll get the court documents processed in Italy and at my consulate to be enrolled in A.I.R.E. and receive a passport.

British nationality law is quite complex. My process is through ancestry but with a peculiar legal quirk that will cause an “other than by descent” award of citizenship. If you happen to be lucky enough to be born in certain places and in certain years to certain people there are a number of different niche and little known legal pathways you might qualify for other than the standard routes. That one is in progress and I want to be assured of the outcome before I go too deeply into detail about it.

 

[daniels27]

Thanks. Keep us posted!