From the article, there were 6705 renunciations in 2020. Essentially nobody does this. Those that do must be in a very unique situation.
(2) Even if you are aware of (1) you have to know of this unique bit of US taxation BS, and know that that means you have to file a US tax return (something that functionally costs money) to not be breaking the law and so be subject to fines.
(3) Even if you do realize that you need to renunciate your citizenship you have to do it in person, so you have to have the ability to also get to a US embassy, and hilariously prove you're a US citizen.
(4) As the article states: renunciation itself also costs money, in addition to the other costs incurred.
Given (1), many impacted people don't ever actually interact with the US government, and with (2) never occurs to them that they need to do anything. (3) and (4) then add an actual barrier to renunciation, couple with the potential "immigration" impact (Flying through LAX, NYC, etc can become questionable, which is a problem given they're major hubs), means that you actually get stuck in a damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Finally, despite it being ostensibly a legal right, the US government has a track record of denying basic constitutionally guaranteed rights, and renunciation is no different. Because of (3) it's necessary to make an appointment and visit in person, and the US has actively ensured that that isn't possible by understaffing and even simply canceling appointments. So while only ~2700 may have renounced citizenship, the actual backlog is in the tens of thousands.
For example if you’re born in a foreign country to a US citizen who can pass down citizenship. You’re a US citizen, but there is no record of it. USCIS doesn’t know, the IRS doesn’t know. Nothing will ever happen if you travel to the US on a foreign passport.
I know a couple people in Canada like this.
And if come from a country with higher taxes than the US you’ll owe $0.
Unless you've had a FS545, DS1350, or FS240 filed.
Incidentally I know this because I paid the $2350 last month, so timing couldn't be more annoying. I hadn't been in the US since being 1 year old and yet financial institutions refused to take my money due to the whims of another country.
If there's anything unique, it's the US doing this to people. It's an insane amount to charge just to declare you have no ties to somewhere.
Quick google search shows articles citing "30,000 backlog" of people wanting appointments to cancel.
You can buy a gun in 15 minutes at a gun store normally. Want to put a suppressor on it or that gun just happens to be 1" shorter than 16"? You're going to wait 9-24 months longer. Ridiculous doesn't even begin to describe it.
The problem is that government is so large that, in practice, the ATF doesn't care, because that $200 just goes into the US Treasury general fund. If they actually kept most of the tax they collect, I think we'd see much faster processing times, and eFile would have happened many years ago.
If it were free and doable with a single signed page, a passport to hand over, and proof of new citizenship, I think numbers would be way higher.
Within the group this affects (permanent emigrants from the US), it’s not a small number. Especially considering it’s such a difficult and expensive process that most don’t bother with it for those reasons.
There were more US citizenship renunciations than there were total births in Wyoming in 2020. But we don’t just ignore the existence of issues affecting people from Wyoming because “essentially nobody lives there.”