Facets of Fiscal Belonging

Abstract The focus here is migrants’ views on taxes. Fiscal citizenship as a concept was difficult to relate to for migrants that have arrived in a country for manifold reasons—for work, fleeing war, staying on after completing an education, for love, etc. Although many migrants may have contributed to their adopted society by paying taxes for a long, long time, some have not achieved formal citizenship. We thus see a need to expand our understanding of citizenship beyond the formal/legal domain to better draw on the stories of migrants. Inspired by Nira Yuval-Davis’ facets of belonging, we propose four facets of fiscal belonging: work, family, (social) acceptance and (political and cultural) values. This allows us to show how the notion of belonging is articulated in relation to tax and citizenship.