I think you’re being a bit unfair. Certainly there will be some like you suggest but a lot that just never thought about it or as the article says couldn’t spen

I think you’re being a bit unfair. Certainly there will be some like you suggest but a lot that just never thought about it or as the article says couldn’t spend the money to renounce it: “in part because the fees to relinquish American citizenship jumped in 2014 from $450 to $2,350, a sum many U.S.-born people could not afford to pay.” Note when you renounce your US citizenship (as I understand it) you may also be required to pay capital gains on what you own as if you sold it at that time, the rules around this are a little complicated. So imagine you live abroad since you’re a baby, don’t speak English, don’t have a US passport, and now you have to pay thousands in fees and maybe tens or hundreds of thousands in one time tax to the US government to be free from their dragnet, plus met a bunch of legal requirements about having filed your tax returns for past years etc. I can definitely see a lot of people would just ignore that problem thinking it’s US overreach and they are a citizen of a sovereign country, then low and behold one day it catches up with them at their bank.