Record number of Americans giving up their citizenship

Americans who live overseas have been renouncing their US citizenship in record numbers over the past several years.

In 2014, nearly 3,500 people bid a permanent adieu to the states, and the year before that about 3,000 did the same.

It's believed that for many a combination of taxation and banking issues has made retaining US citizenship while living and working abroad undesirable.

For some time it's been required that Americans earning their paycheck in other countries pay income taxes to both nations.

What they reported and filed wasn't historically a matter of overwhelming international concern.

The matter's been complicated in recent years by the greater scrutiny being placed on who is paying what to whom, and where that money is being kept.

An initiative called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act requires that the world's banks alert the US if any of its citizens have an account holding over $50,000.

It also calls for a reporting of American clients' incomes to the IRS.

Though the act was intended to catch wealthy Americans stashing money in offshore accounts, it's affected the 7.5 million Americans employed abroad.

For thousands, it's believed the government measures simply created far too large a hassle.

More on AOL.com
Health law sign-ups hit snag on big weekend
Obama spending long holiday weekend in Southern California
Top 25 most dangerous college campuses in America revealed