A hard-line written response by Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra to the latest in a series of questions put to him and other Dutch officials over the past two years, about the banking problems so-called “accidental Americans” have been struggling with, has thrust the issue back into the media spotlight in the Netherlands, at least, since it was posted on the Dutch government's website on Oct. 6. 

A nine-page response by Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra to the latest batch of questions put to him by a Dutch parliamentarian sympathetic to the banking problems so-called “accidental Americans” have been struggling with has left many of  those accidentals stunned and frustrated, they say.

Some so-called accidental Americans, who are citizens and residents of the Netherlands and who have been struggling to maintain their bank accounts there owing to their lack of a U.S. “tax information number,” have run into a new problem, a Dutch news organization has reported: The recent closure of the American consulate there, in response to the coronavirus crisis.

Dutch finance minister Johannes "Hans" Vijlbrief has responded to more than 20 questions posed to him by three Dutch lawmakers last month, on behalf of so-called "accidental Americans" resident in the Netherlands who have been struggling to maintain their Dutch bank accounts, by insisting that it would be "premature for banks to close, block or freeze" the bank accounts of such dual Dutch/American clients now, just because these clients had failed to provide these Dutch banks with a U.S. "Tax Information Number (typically a Social Security number). 

Representatives from two American expat organizations that met yesterday with around half a dozen members of the Dutch House of Representatives in the Hague said they believed that their urgent call for government action to deal with the problems of thousands of  bank accounts belonging to "accidental Americans" being closed was at least acknowledged, and the groundwork laid for further discussions.