Wow, so you have to give up US citizenship to get your bonus? In some ways that might make the decision easier!

In this neck of the woods, Belgium, Americans even get to pay more income tax to Belgium than any other nationality on earth. How? Because a bonus is paid via a “SICAV” which is a sort of collective investment scheme. Closed to “US persons”. I’m not American, but became aware of FATCA and the US tax code due to having an American friend. What an absolute horror.

I think a lot of people are missing out on business or employment opportunities because of FATCA, but there’s no way to document it.

There are good business opportunities in Africa, but no one wants to deal with me because of all the laws and Fatca also exposed many potential business partners to unnecessary paper works .
This also created many problems for some elderly foreigners who shared bank accounts with US children. It is a mess.We need to change this law ASAP

Well said! I feel for you, especially regarding your son being trapped!

“People like me who suffer from indignation fatigue feel that nothing will change. Writing letters and articles expressing our indignation accomplishes nothing, making us angrier and more tired.”

I may have given up long ago after the huge amount of Canadian dollars I spent in my *official* renunciation of US citizenship in 2012 (though warned in 1975 when I became a Canadian citizen that I would thereby lose my US citizenship) so I could have that CLN to produce for my local Canadian foreign financial institution.

I would never have knowingly subjected my Canadian-born children, born to me, to what has now come to pass. My daughter and I are both on the *name and shame* list though we should certainly would not be considered covered expatriates. My Canadian-born son though, who knows nothing but a Canadian life, cannot renounce because he does not have the requisite mental capacity to understand the concept of *citizenship* and must make that decision with no influence or help from anyone. It is for him and others like him (many more than just those with some developmental disability) who are / will be entrapped, like my son, into costly and complex yearly US tax and account reporting compliance that I continue. My cost, as many, has been much more than the $$$ to come into compliance and go through the expatriation process.

My experience taught me that with the injustice that comes with the very exceptional US citizenship-based taxation, there should only ever be an opt-into US citizenship if the facts permit rather than an opt-out.

That our letters and submissions are summarily dismissed / ignored is good reason for our indignation. It is truly betrayal and makes a sham out of the US claim to be defined as *land of the free*.

Thank you for your strength shown in representation of so many of us in the writings you have produced.

That means you are stateless, right? That must be tough! I wouldn’t have done this without my Dutch nationality.

You wanted to make a splash and I can not say if you did or not, but you have touched another human beings heart on this matter and for that I say thank you.

I left the homeland a decade ago, relinquished but do not have a CLN so I live in that proverbial no-mans land of being undocumented. I am afraid of having a back dated CLN turned down along with the expense.

I have followed your story from day one and will refer back to it again many times.

George S.

I’m still indignant too! But I’m trying to distance myself a little bit from everything to do with American politics, including FATCA. Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially given that I’ll be teaching American studies again in the fall, just in time for the elections!