What costs? If she doesn&#x27;t live there she imposes no costs on the USA. If she ever returned and started imposing costs, she&#x27;d also start paying taxes.<p>Why is she still a citizen? The article says she&#x27;s in the process of renouncing. Not done already probably because:<p>• She might one day need to spend time with family or elderly relatives, even if she&#x27;d prefer to stay abroad.<p>• The USA does not allow you to give up your citizenship for tax reasons. She&#x27;s probably screwed herself here by talking to the BBC, so I suspect she doesn&#x27;t know that (<i>edit</i>: wrong, I missed the part in the article where it says Jane is a pseudonym). If they think you relinquished your citizenship to avoid taxes they can simply levy taxes on you anyway.<p>• Giving up citizenship is itself an expensive process and can trigger an &quot;exit tax&quot; that assumes you liquidated every asset you own on the day of renouncement, including things like a home. This exit tax can itself make giving up US citizenship financially infeasible.<p>• It costs $2350 and can take months.<p>In short, the entire US FATCA system is designed to screw over expats as hard as possible. It&#x27;s very hard to get out and isn&#x27;t at all justifiable under any moral or ethical code I&#x27;m aware of. The only reason the US can enforce it at all is the primacy of New York in the financial system and the incredibly aggressive Congress.