More than 1.5 million U.S. citizens living in East Asia are now facing a “gut-wrenching decision” of renouncing their U.S. citizenship due to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), America’s highly controversial global tax law, a new survey has found.

The poll, carried out by deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent organizations, and its Hong Kong division, Acuma, also discovered that more than half of Americans living in East Asia now have problems accessing normal banking services due to FATCA. The poll also found that 38 percent also have experienced people and/or organizations not wanting to conduct business with and/or employ them thanks to the tax law.

More than 2,500 Americans resident in the East Asian powerhouse cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Tokyo took part in the research.

FATCA “has been a hammer blow to the 8 million Americans overseas since it was implemented in 2014,”