I feel for you. It is a gut-wrenching decision for anyone who grew up in the US.

Some people end up getting double taxed–usually to do with pensions being seen by the US as UNearned income, so it doesn’t fall under the exemption, or with capital gains taxes. I did renounce, and I’m trying to keep it positive by speaking out (writing out?) about it. Thanks for the encouragement.

Yes, even my Republican brother-in-law remarked, “For once we agree on something!” Weird feeling, isn’t it? I know quite a few people who are doing what you are: just trying to stay compliant. Perhaps I’m over-sensitive, but I felt really stressed doing that. I had this constant anger and feeling of being unfairly persecuted, and my husband’s resentment that he had to give me so much of his information (joint accounts) for the FBAR forms didn’t help. I resented handing over the information as much as he did. And the forms were just too complicated in my case for me to fill in by myself, so there went about a thousand euros per year to an accountant just to prove that I didn’t owe income taxes to the US. And that’s on top of what we pay an accountant here to do our (quite high) Dutch taxes — my husband is self-employed so those are complicated too. I was afraid the situation would get even worse if I didn’t get out soon: what if they raise the fee? Or really start comparing FBAR forms with the bank reports? Or what if the banks here in NL start rejecting Americans like they have in some other countries? Too much worry for me!

My thoughts exactly. It’s the unfairness of it that finally helped me make the decision. Why stand for it?

You’re right. Even if you have no savings, no assets, a low income, etc., if you’re a US citizen you still have to file the forms every year including the FBAR, which is such an invasion of privacy. The ‘strings attached’ that you mentioned are much worse for US citizens (and Eritreans) than for citizens of other countries because the US does citizenship-based taxation while the rest do residence-based.