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. 

Dutch Parliamentarians are scheduled to meet with Netherlands-resident so-called 'accidental Americans' next Wednesday, to discuss the continuing problem of banks in the Netherlands that have been freezing the bank accounts of some such 'accidentals'. 

"Dozens" of customers of Dutch banks have come forward to report that their bank accounts in the country have been frozen, and banking services otherwise being denied to them, because they are considered to be American and yet have failed to provide the banks with their U.S. "tax information numbers" (TINs), according to reports out of the Netherlands.

A Dutch radio news report on Tuesday which cited a "six-fold rise" in the number of American/Dutch citizens who reportedly had sought help in giving up their U.S. citizenships this year has been picked up by the English language media in that country and abroad.

Dutch tax minister Menno Snel has said that his country's banks and financial institutions should not feel a need to panic over those of their so-called "accidental American" account-holders who lack U.S. Social Security numbers and other key data soon to be required by the U.S. tax authorities, as he has been assured that any repercussions for failing to comply with the regulations in question could be delayed by as long as several years.

Dutch lawmakers have called on fellow EU member states "to campaign together for changes to American tax laws which are affecting thousands of people who have American nationality but no ties to [that] country", an English-language publication in the Netherlands has reported. 

Dutch finance secretary Menno Snel has become the latest European official to raise with Washington the matter of the harsh effects U.S. tax legislation is having on European citizens – in Snel's case, Dutch citizens resident in the Netherlands – as part of efforts aimed at convincing U.S. lawmakers to make changes to these laws.