This woman became ‘sovereign’, but now regrets: ‘Don’t fall for it’

Becoming a ‘sovereign citizen’ was for a woman who… Pointer anonymously tells her story, the way out of her debts. At least, that’s what she thought. Her debts have now almost doubled.

No more paying taxes, canceling health insurance and ignoring fines that pop up on the mat. ‘Autonomists’ no longer want to be part of society in any way and believe that Dutch laws and regulations do not apply to them.

Withdrawal from society

Subway previously wrote about a bailiff who increasingly encounters such citizens. But who are these people who withdraw from society?

Pointer spoke several autonomists or ‘sovereigns’. One of them, Jeanette Lohuis, started a residential community in Spain and runs a webshop where people can order materials that would make autonomous life possible. Such as fake embassy signs and fake diplomatic passports.

Don’t pay taxes

Lohuis does not pay road tax or income tax, she explains. She explains in a letter to the tax authorities why she believes she does not have to pay tax. She also explains to people how you can choose what you do and do not pay.

Experts agree: actively spreading this message is deception. “She really leads people astray,” says Jelle van Buuren, senior lecturer in Security Studies at Leiden University. “You are defrauding people who provide you with incorrect information. They often have to pay for it too. There is often a revenue model behind that management,” says professor of general legal science Jan Brouwer.

Get out of debt by becoming sovereign

One of the people who was misled is a woman from the north of the Netherlands. She started with a debt of 30,000 euros, which weighed heavily on her. “Bailiffs at the door, collection agencies, we have already been cut off from gas, water and electricity.”

At a meeting she hears how you could stop this by becoming sovereign. “You didn’t pay anything anymore. No taxes, rent, mortgage or gas, water and electricity.” It no longer makes sense to her now, but it did at the time, she explains. “I wanted to believe it.”

The misery caused by the message of an ‘autonomous life’ is great, says Van Buuren. “Families with children end up on the street because they really think that the government has no right to tax them or that they do not have to pay rent. And if you screw some kind of sign on the facade saying ‘I am an embassy’, then the idea is that the government is not even allowed to come in.”

“We are now starting to see examples of the government actually coming in, causing people to go bankrupt, become bankrupt, and be evicted from their homes. That is the social drama you see.”

Drama after wanting to become sovereign

A tragedy, according to the woman who hoped that by becoming ‘sovereign’ she would get out of debt. “I now think I have between 50,000 and 55,000 euros in debt. It has gotten much worse.”

Afterwards she deeply regrets her choice. “How stupid I was to get sucked into that. It is a black page in my life. I should never have done it.”

That’s why she’s speaking out, she says. “I hope to save people from the same mistake I made,” she says. “Don’t fall for it. Just don’t do it.”

You can watch the episode of Pointer here: The autonomous dream.

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