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People that write these articles always fall into a few camps 1) they don't understand their tax position 2) they've received some extremely dodgy advice 3) they're trying to be 'clever' with their money or 4) are extremely wealthy and have very complicated finances and they're trying to dodge US taxes but retain the benefits of citizenship

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Is holding a mutual fund in your home country dodgy?

It subjects you to the punitively complex PFIC rules. These are largely a protectionist measure for the US financial system but you get caught up in them regardless.

To do your US taxes correctly as an ex-pat is really complex. If you just file a 1040 you’ve missed a number of forms to document your foreign holdings.

Does being clever with your money include a retirement fund that is considered absolutely vanilla in the country you are living in? Because the USA assumes that all financial services in the world provide exactly the same format of financial reporting that US services do. So retirement funds that are the foreign equivalent of an ordinary 401K have high compliance costs if you need to file with the USA.

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