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Comment by VWWHFSfQ | Hacker News Reader

Then I'm even less clear on what her issues were. Somehow this is reminding me of that girl that took $350,000 in debt to get a Theater Management degree from Duke University and then blogged about how criminal the American higher education system is and how she was running off to Russia with her husband to escape the crippling debt.

It's like, you took almost half a mil in debt to go to a PRIVATE SCHOOL to get a degree that you would have no hope of ever using to pay back your _crippling debt_. Student load debt is a real problem in USA..but that's not it.

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> Then I'm even less clear on what her issues were

I think the issues are pretty simple; if you are a US citizen but living and working in another country permanently with no US local income, she found the impact of FACTA and tax reporting obligations to be too expensive and or pain-in-the-butt to make it worth keeping her US citizenship.

There are very real impacts and constraints on ex-pats in this situation; whether or not they are worth it to you is a personal evaluation I suppose.

This is nothing like the schoold debt issue you describe.

Ah OK. So now it makes sense why this woman renounced her USA citizenship

She wanted to still be an American, but didn't want to do the yearly paperwork to keep her citizenship.

Got it.

It's not just your paperwork. In many countries you'll be denied seemingly basic financial services by institutions because FACTA would make their paperwork too much hassle.

OK then she should just keep being an American. Right?

I'm wondering why you're being so judgmental of this woman. What offends you so much about her legitimate decision to do this? You might not agree with her reasons, but are you really in a place to decide that her feelings, frustrations and her decision are invalid and inconsequential? It's not like she's antivaxx. This doesn't hurt anybody. How about seeking to understand instead being so argumentative over nothing?

Renouncing citizenship makes that all go away. Her call.

Paying $1,000 a year to file a form that says you don't owe taxes doesn't seem like a problem to you?

The understanding I came away with from skimming was it had to do with an ideological railing against the FATCA reporting requirements. And shame; lots of shame.

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