It’s clear from your response that you’re not at all familiar with the issues here. I’m a bit confused as to why you’d feel the need to share your opinion on a topic where you’re very clearly not well informed.

As an American expat for five years, I can assure you her complaints are accurate. 1. Not remotely the same. As a resident of a particular state, your senators and congresspeople are certainly looking out for your state’s interests. As an expat, almost nobody cares. 2. FATCA doesn’t care how you file. If you’re married, your spouse is included. 3. Most investment banks will no longer accept expats as clients, and go so far as to monitor and close accounts for people consistently logging in from overseas. When we lived abroad we had to be very careful with VPNs, and often had our US-resident parents monitor our accounts for us just in case.

> It’s clear from your response that you’re not at all familiar with the issues here

Im NOT! I'm trying to understand it.

It appears that she's giving up her citizenship so she doesn't have to use a VPN and has a better selection of banks and to avoid paying $1000 a year?

Seems like a citizenship is worth WAY more than that!

Something doesn't add up here!

Or do people with a lot of money just have a lot less tolerance for inconveniences than average moneyed people?

It genuinely is far more invasive and frustrating than you'd expect.

I'm a dual US/UK citizen, living in the UK for four years. I have been turned away from local banks for being American. I have also had American banks and brokerages unilaterally terminate my prior accounts for moving abroad. I cannot reasonably purchase local life insurance policies nor mutual funds without tripping over IRS regulations that strip them of any preferential tax treatment and impose unimaginably onerous reporting requirements (PFIC).

As a dual citizen, you would think I could just bank with my British passport and conceal my American citizenship. Except foreign banks in countries with normal diplomatic relations with America are required to proactively search their customer database for indications of potential American citizens, report their details, and possibly preventatively withhold 30% of all payments to those accounts (FATCA). This is a right pain in the ass, so those institutions will often preemptively exclude customers who seem too American from the outset.

I have to rigorously report the highest monthly balance / value of every single one of my foreign assets and accounts, every year, to both the IRS and FinCEN, on entirely separate and incompatible forms.

And I get to pay thousands of dollars a year for the pleasure of being locked out of basic financial vehicles (life insurance policies!) and proving to Uncle Sam that I don't owe him anything. It's especially galling because this kind of reporting and taxation for foreign-domiciled citizens is unique to America, at least of developed countries.

Not to mention that all of this joy, and more, extends to your spouse, regardless of their citizenship.

I keep doing it, year after year, because I still believe in America. But after a few years without stepping on American soil, the question why am I still doing this comes of its own accord.

Thanks. This explains it a little, but still seems like a huge gamble to give up one's citizen ship to the largest superpower in the world.

I'd rather just use a VPN and lie to get around the bullshit if possible.

You're literally not doing anything wrong by wanting to keep the money you have to support yourself and your family... the laws are just stupid and extremely unfair.

> I have also had American banks and brokerages unilaterally terminate my prior accounts for moving abroad

Was it Vanguard or Charles Schwab? Did they give a notice before terminating the accounts?

In many EU countries, to have a telephone line (land or mobile). The same with internet access: you must have a bank account. But most local banks do not want local US customers. It's prohibitively onerous for them. Imagine trying to establish a life without a telephone or internet.

You can't open a bank account with just a VPN. You also need an address in the US. And even if you do, how do you get money into that account? Do you think your employer in the Netherlands would match your 401(k) deposits?

There's tons of ways to get an address in the U.S. several digitally.

You can transfer money into that account via digital transfer?

OF course your Netherlands employer won't match 401k, they prob don't even know what that is.

Will they match it a 401k if you GIVE UP your citizenship?

Doesn't make sense.

Right, there are retirement/pension investments for Dutch/EU nationals which she is not eligible for because of her status as a US person (in the eyes of the SEC).

So, long story short, she's ineligible for investing as a US national unless she jumps through hoops to maintain a US address and appears to reside in the US. Meanwhile, she's ineligible for investing as a Dutch national because EU brokers won't deal with US nationals. Limbo.

>As a resident of a particular state, your senators and congresspeople are certainly looking out for your state’s interests.

You've apparently forgotten a whole lot in your five years as an expat.

You mentioned it. FATCA is not targeting US citizens abroad, it's targeting financial organisations who have US citizens as clients. So, many banks around the world will have "Are you a US citizen" as one of the first questions to open an account, and if the answer is yes, they will politely decline any further requests.

Are there NO workarounds?

I noticed you said 'many' and not 'all' banks.

It looks like these banks work for expats.

https://dutchreview.com/expat/best-banks-expats-netherlands/

Something doesn't add up.

From a non rich persons perspective it appears that person gave up her citizenship so she could essentially have a better selection of banks and to not have to use a VPN?

It seems like a US citizenship is worth it?

The actual real problems are not clear to me.

That page describes the situation for expats in general. It's different for U.S. citizens.

Bunq, the first bank that's listed, has special requirements: https://together.bunq.com/d/2318-why-are-there-special-regul...

With an SSN you can open a basic checking and savings account. However, you'll be denied for any type of investments. This also means U.S. citizens can't participate in pension plans of Dutch employees.

Even local crypto exchanges are refusing service: https://bitonic.nl/en/faq/33/what-is-a-us-person

Meanwhile, banks and brokers in the U.S. require a permanent residential address. For example, Wealthfront states they don't "support clients residing outside of the U.S., including U.S. citizens residing abroad".

Additionally, The Netherlands has a wealth tax. Even on unrealized gains. Each year you pay taxes on stocks you haven't sold yet. Then, when you actually do sell, you can't use the previous years of Dutch taxes that you've paid to offset the U.S. capital gains tax.

It's especially complicated for so called Accidental Americans. Many of whom don't have or know their SSN. To get one you must submit your birth certificate and US passport. If you don't have those it's quite difficult to get them.

When you finally obtain your SSN, renouncing is a challenge in itself. It requires filing tax returns for the past 3 years + 6 years of FBAR (you'll most likely need an accountant for this or face steep penalties), pay $2300 to renounce, and then file another tax return for the year in which you renounced.

> Even local crypto exchanges are refusing service

As long as one has non-US local friends/family who can cash out, I don't think this matters much (albeit in a local currency)

I think in this day in age, all of this is really depends on ones personal preference in how deeply they want to tie themselves directly to the traditional banking system (and traditional asset classes/financing/jobs/organizations) without even trying to give up US citizenship (because obviously, the process is a PITA).

She also wrote "Without an address in the US, I can’t open an investment account there; with US nationality, it is becoming more and more difficult to do any investment or borrowing outside of the US.".

Yeah, how to remain non rich: keep your money in a savings account and not invest in stocks, etc. Want to start a business? Need a loan for that? Sorry...

Also that webpage doesn't even say those banks accept American clients, "expats" don't mean American, EU freedom of movement and ease of getting work visa means there's people from all over the world in the EU, either temporarily or permanently.

Addendum: I've also talked to someone who said she couldn't take some jobs because if she has access to the company's bank account, she has to report that to the IRS, maybe even the amount in that account, which of course no foreign company would volunteer unless they really have to.

If you have access to your spouse's account you may need to enter that into the FBAR form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act#FBAR

Regarding the difficulty of investing/borrowing outside the US: Non-US banks are required to report stuff to the US if they have US customers. So they might not want US customers because it's a hassle for them.

And that in turn is not in line with EU law - if not in letter then at least in spirit so banks are caught between two powers and in turn offload that burden onto the citizens. Realistically as an American abroad you can do it but there is a continuous cost and stress associated with remaining a US citizen.

I know several people that have gone down this path and a few who are doing it right now, the US seems outright vindictive against those that want to leave, a bit like an abusive spouse that can't imagine there is a life after them for you.

As a US citizen who lived in the Netherlands until recently, at least one bank (ABN AMRO) is fine with US customers, and is also attractive to expats in other ways- for instance, they will do more of their correspondence in English than other banks. It required maybe 20 minutes in an office at my local branch when I opened my account for them to have dealt with everything, and then my banking experience was no different from anyone else's.

The problem in the Netherlands isn't so much expats who grew up in the US, but "accidental Americans" who were born in the US and left as small children. They are US citizens, but don't have an SSN, which Dutch banks require to comply with US law (and with pandemic-related embassy closures, obtaining one isn't necessarily easy).

I don’t think ABN AMRO is completely fine with US customers today, given that they have an US persons disclaimer and have a phone number for questions regarding it (https://www.abnamro.nl/en/personal/specially-for/us-persons....)

Problem is that FATCA requires banks to actively send the US government personal information about its customers with US citizenship, while the GDPR forbids them from doing so without consent from their customers (https://americanexpatfinance.com/tax/item/632-eu-data-protec...)

But yes, accidental Americans definitely are a weird case. Some of them don’t even know they have US citizenship until the IRS sends them a message, or when, upon visiting the USA, border control requires them to show a US passport (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_American#Awareness_...)