They Get Taxed, but Not Vaxxed

[Celerity]

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/04/americans-who-still-cant-get-vaccinated/618622/



Like many Americans, Ariane Dvir is eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. Only, she doesn’t live in America. From her home near Cologne, in western Germany, she has spent much of this year hearing about her loved ones back in the United States getting vaccinated. Her husband, an Israeli citizen, has heard about his family and friends in Israel doing the same. Though the couple had intended to wait their turn in Germany, the slow pace of vaccination there, and across much of Europe, has made them reconsider. Come summer, Dvir and her husband will take separate trips to their respective home countries. They plan to return to Germany fully vaccinated. “We refrained from so much in the past year, it feels out of step with the spirit of things to travel without a vaccine,” she told me. “Then again, what is more important than getting vaccinated?”

More than 5 million Americans residing outside the United States face a similar predicament, watching the country’s successful inoculation drive, some from places where vaccination has scarcely begun. With all stateside American adults due to be eligible to receive a vaccine as early as this week, some expats have already opted to travel home for the jab. Others are calling on the government to direct some of the hundreds of millions of doses it’s projected to have left over to its overseas citizens, wherever they happen to live. President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that the U.S. will share its excess supply only after the needs of Americans are met. Why, some overseas Americans are wondering, should they be left out?

The answer to that question is more than just a logistical matter. It comes down to what responsibility, if any, the U.S. government has to its overseas citizens. The U.S. is unusual among most countries in that its citizens must still file annual tax returns even if they don’t live in America. All of its citizens, regardless of where they live, are also eligible to vote. So as taxpayers and voters, don’t these citizens have a legitimate claim to the U.S. government’s aid in a public-health crisis?

Though there are no rules preventing an American citizen from returning to the U.S. right now, going back isn’t as easy as it used to be. Although Americans living abroad (myself included) might have been accustomed to going home at least once or twice a year, the pandemic put an end to that transient lifestyle: In addition to the public-health concerns surrounding pandemic-era travel, returning to the states now carries a number of new complications—COVID-19 tests, potential quarantine requirements, the risk of needing medical care in a country where many of us do not have health insurance, and the possibility of being locked out of your country of residence (Americans living in France, for example, are barred from returning to the country if they leave under current restrictions).

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