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Pompous Rhombus posted:Is the foreign tax credit a 1:1 thing? I'm moving to Australia (ostensibly for good) early next year, and taxes there are probably always going to be higher than in the US. Assuming the exchange rate doesn't crater, I would hopefully be exceeding the ~$USD97k for the FEIE by mid-career. Is one more or less in the clear as far as Uncle Sam is concerned if you're paying higher taxes abroad and filing for the foreign tax credit? Yes, it is 1:1, if you owe $3,476 in US taxes and paid $4,000 in foreign taxes, the credit would take care of your entire US tax burden and then some (which you could then carry over to future years for up to 10 years).
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Jun 16, 2014 07:56
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I'm an American expat who spent two years in Melbourne, and I've just moved to London. I get paid in USD to a US bank account so a lot of the money transfer questions that people are asking don't apply to me - instead, I have the reverse problem of how I can move my US money into a foreign country. I've found a completely fee-free way to do this, but it's quite ridiculous - I withdraw cash in the foreign country from an ATM (ideally one that my US bank has a relationship with so I don't pay an ATM fee), and then deposit the cash into my local country bank account. Nothing else I've looked into - wires, transfer websites, even FX trading - seems to be as easy or as cheap.
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Jun 16, 2014 13:37
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Be careful with that since your bank is likely charging a markup on the currency conversion. I think Visa has a standardized rate. In my experience it's usually 2-3% over market. Not a big deal for something temporary but if it's your only way to ever get cash, definitely look at the fine print. Certainly convenient though!
zmcnulty fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jun 16, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 15:23
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zmcnulty posted:Be careful with that since your bank is likely charging a markup on the currency conversion. I think Visa has a standardized rate. In my experience it's usually 2-3% over market. Not a big deal for something temporary but if it's your only way to ever get cash, definitely look at the fine print. Certainly convenient though!
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Jun 16, 2014 15:45
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Ani posted:My bank definitely charges the market rate - I've verified it. My credit card does too. I think US banks and credit cards are not allowed to disguise their foreign transaction fees, and if they are charging something extra, they're required to mark it as a separate fee. I know that's how one of my cards does it. I also find this hard to believe, and I suspect in the majority of cases, there is a feee of some sort involved. I know both my American credit cards(visa / mastercard / discover) charge fees and do not use a favorable exchange rate. My ATM card does the same. I'd definitely verify exactly what you are being charged if you try going this route, as no fees and a good exchange rate are definitely not typcial.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:10
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GTGastby posted:I also find this hard to believe, and I suspect in the majority of cases, there is a feee of some sort involved. I know both my American credit cards(visa / mastercard / discover) charge fees and do not use a favorable exchange rate. My ATM card does the same. I'd definitely verify exactly what you are being charged if you try going this route, as no fees and a good exchange rate are definitely not typcial. Not really. If your American bank has some sort of relationship with your foreign bank there usually aren't any fees involved.
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Jun 17, 2014 06:46
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USAA (if you can get it) is pretty dope as well.
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Jun 17, 2014 07:28
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I'd recommend using HSBC if you expect to be moving around as an expat for a while. I have a Premier account with them and I believe they have a better footprint across the world than any of the American banks. For the poster upstream who's earning USD and living in London for a while, shouldn't you be thinking about hedging your exposure to GBPUSD?
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Jun 17, 2014 07:58
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shrike82 posted:I'd recommend using HSBC if you expect to be moving around as an expat for a while. All of this. Their other accounts are poo poo, but Premier gives you a good conversion rate and some excellent side perks like free travel insurance which is huge when flying back to the States. What do we think about GBP/USD moving forward?
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Jun 17, 2014 08:38
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quote:I'd recommend using HSBC if you expect to be moving around as an expat for a while. shrike82 posted:For the poster upstream who's earning USD and living in London for a while, shouldn't you be thinking about hedging your exposure to GBPUSD? quote:I also find this hard to believe, and I suspect in the majority of cases, there is a feee of some sort involved. I know both my American credit cards(visa / mastercard / discover) charge fees and do not use a favorable exchange rate. My ATM card does the same. I'd definitely verify exactly what you are being charged if you try going this route, as no fees and a good exchange rate are definitely not typcial.
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Jun 17, 2014 10:36
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Easy, give it to Greenpeace and have them lose it.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:42
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1. The absolute best exchange rate you can get in essentially any situation short of literally live-trading FX on a hypothetical brokerage platform with no trading costs is by using a debit card with no FX fees at an ATM. Visa/MasterCard require issuers to give you the market exchange rate on cards with no FX fees. Unfortunately, this isn't a good solution for large transfers. 2. Using a bank for foreign exchange can be good, but it can also be a rip off. Do the math as it varies bank-by-bank, and sometimes even branch-by-branch. Some services like xetrade.com, xoom.com, and usforex.com may offer better rates, but are complicated to use. Also keep in mind that FX rates at banks are typically negotiable. 3. Just wanted to see if anyone is in my situation, since it seems that most of the people have gone down the teach abroad route and not Big Corporate. I'm an American expat living in Europe working for a Fortune 500 company. My taxes are done by a Big 4 accounting firm, and I have all sorts of complicated expat benefits in terms of reimbursements, allowances, etc. So far, it has been an unmitigated disaster working with the Big 4 firm and with the relocation services provider to get my benefits set up. Are any of these relocation services companies actually good at what they do?
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Jun 18, 2014 10:25
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Pissingintowind posted:3. Just wanted to see if anyone is in my situation, since it seems that most of the people have gone down the teach abroad route and not Big Corporate. I'm an American expat living in Europe working for a Fortune 500 company. My taxes are done by a Big 4 accounting firm, and I have all sorts of complicated expat benefits in terms of reimbursements, allowances, etc. So far, it has been an unmitigated disaster working with the Big 4 firm and with the relocation services provider to get my benefits set up. Are any of these relocation services companies actually good at what they do?
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Jun 18, 2014 10:32
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My host country has a requirement to pay a certain amount of salary for seconded employees in local currency. It's awful, and fucks everything up. Edit: I can't complain too much because an expat package/compensation is 
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Jun 18, 2014 12:15
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FBAR questions! I'm in Canada. In 2014 I set up both a TIFA and RRSP accounts. The RRSP was funded by my spouse (for the tax credit), but in my name. The funds for both accounts came from our joint checking account. What does this mean for FBAR? I also have an RRP funded by my work, as well as an ESPP. Anything special there? Old Fart fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Nov 28, 2014 |
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Nov 28, 2014 18:01
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Being an expat is starting to loving suck because of the US' terrible approach to dealing with money laundering and tax evasion. Has anyone found a single US bank willing to provide banking services to expats without a permanent US address? I keep hearing about Charles Schwab's "One International" brokerage account, but since it's not a checking/savings account I'm not sure how its debit/cash card works, and I hear that you need to maintain some reasonable amount of investment activity on the account in order to meet its requirements.
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Jan 4, 2015 14:05
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horse mans posted:Being an expat is starting to loving suck because of the US' terrible approach to dealing with money laundering and tax evasion. Has anyone found a single US bank willing to provide banking services to expats without a permanent US address? Have you tried the other direction and looked into any non-US based banks? RBC and TD, which are both based in Canada, also have US operations, so they may be able to help. There's also HSBC, which seems to have operations everywhere.
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Jan 4, 2015 15:07
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HSBC Expat requires an initial deposit of 60,000 pounds. Maybe that's fine for you big spendin goons. http://www.expat.hsbc.com/1/2/hsbc-expat/products/current-accounts/bank-account/eligible
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Jan 5, 2015 05:02
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Just something I was curious about : for those of you freelancing abroad, was it pretty straightforward to get out of paying the self-employment tax to the IRS? IRS link
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Jan 13, 2015 16:23
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Bump: US goons, who do you bank with? I thought USAA was pretty good for reimbursing you for ATM fees, but I'm finding out that their wire transfer fees are not great ($45 a pop, even for domestic), plus it appears I have to call them every time I want to do it. On top of that, it looks like they may have messed up and transferred about half the amount I told them to  Ideally, I'd be looking for something without any monthly/annual fees, where everything can be done online, and transfer fees are low. Due to the low fees and significantly more favourable rate, I'm using OZforex to do the transfer (they have a bank in the US, actually the same one USAA uses for their wire transfers, so it counts as a domestic wire when I'm sending it abroad).
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Mar 9, 2015 01:35
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PenFed has the lowest international wire transfer fees that I have found. But it's still like 30 outgoing, I think it's almost impossible to get lower than that with a personal account that doesn't have like a million in it.
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Mar 9, 2015 01:52
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Sorry, I could have written that a lot more clearly: I found a remittance company that gives a better rate than any of the banks seem to, and they've got an intermediary bank in the US they use to accept transfers, so it'd be domestic transfers I'm looking at rather than international.
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Mar 9, 2015 02:43
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Sorry, I could have written that a lot more clearly: I found a remittance company that gives a better rate than any of the banks seem to, and they've got an intermediary bank in the US they use to accept transfers, so it'd be domestic transfers I'm looking at rather than international. https://www.penfed.org/Wire-Transfer/ quote:Sending Funds From Your PenFed Account to Another Financial Institution That's 5 dollars per wire cheaper than anywhere else I've seen. Is it worth it to you to ACH money to them to wire it out though..since their ATM usage isn't reimbursed etc
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Mar 9, 2015 04:34
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Throwing this out here in case someone has experience with this: My girlfriend is quitting her job and moving from Hong Kong to Europe soon. She's currently banking with HSBC. Our plan is to initially just do nothing, and then eventually transfer all her funds to an account here in Europe. Any holes in that plan? Her salary will obviously stop rolling in, but she'd like to be able to still use her credit and debit cards for a bit (not spending what she doesn't have, obviously.)
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Mar 9, 2015 13:37
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As long as you can close the account from abroad, that should be fine.
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Mar 9, 2015 14:08
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This isn't specifically a finance question, but do any of you (US expats) use a mail forwarding service? I'm moving abroad soon but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile/necessary?
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Mar 9, 2015 17:00
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astr0man posted:This isn't specifically a finance question, but do any of you (US expats) use a mail forwarding service? I'm moving abroad soon but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile/necessary? If you have good friends/family that you can have your mail sent to, just do that and then they can let you know if you get anything important. The only things I still get mail for are my US credit cards/banking stuff.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:46
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astr0man posted:This isn't specifically a finance question, but do any of you (US expats) use a mail forwarding service? I'm moving abroad soon but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile/necessary? Also my family is not in FL, and I want to keep my mailing address in FL for tax purposes. I've looked at some mail forwarding services, and I'm planning on using MyRVmail.com. They can handle your mail however you want, hold/scan/shred/forward. If you are only moving temporarily overseas, then the family/friends route might make sense.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:21
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Yeah this is a permanent/long-term move for and the family route isn't a great option for me
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Mar 9, 2015 18:24
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I use family, but yes, a US credit card/address is still very useful for shopping and something you should keep if possible.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:25
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Anyone have any good approaches to paying off U.S. credit cards (and other U.S. bills)? I'm sick of paying fees to wire money from my Canadian bank (CIBC) to my American bank (Wells Fargo). I'd get rid of the U.S. bank account entirely if I could.
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May 20, 2015 20:17
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Oakland Martini posted:Anyone have any good approaches to paying off U.S. credit cards (and other U.S. bills)? I'm sick of paying fees to wire money from my Canadian bank (CIBC) to my American bank (Wells Fargo). I'd get rid of the U.S. bank account entirely if I could. Can you get a credit card in Canada with no foreign transaction fees?
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May 20, 2015 22:40
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Can you get a credit card in Canada with no foreign transaction fees? Probably... you suggest I use that one to pay off the US one somehow? I use the US one occasionally for things that don't allow Canadian cards so I can't stop using it entirely.
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May 21, 2015 01:06
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Oakland Martini posted:Anyone have any good approaches to paying off U.S. credit cards (and other U.S. bills)? I'm sick of paying fees to wire money from my Canadian bank (CIBC) to my American bank (Wells Fargo). I'd get rid of the U.S. bank account entirely if I could. Have you tried transferwise or currencyfair?
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May 21, 2015 12:32
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Can you get a credit card in Canada with no foreign transaction fees? There's only without extra forex fees: the amazon.ca Visa.
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May 22, 2015 14:24
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So is there no way out of capital gains tax on selling some mutual funds if I live abroad? I could have sworn there was some sort of exclusion, but having a quick look at it again this afternoon that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm doing my Master's abroad and have no other income this year, will probably need to be selling stuff off early next year to pay tuition/living expenses. I know there's an exception for Roth IRA withdrawals to pay educational expenses, but my university isn't one of the ones the federal government recognises as "qualified".
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Jul 26, 2015 04:15
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Pompous Rhombus posted:So is there no way out of capital gains tax on selling some mutual funds if I live abroad? I could have sworn there was some sort of exclusion, but having a quick look at it again this afternoon that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm doing my Master's abroad and have no other income this year, will probably need to be selling stuff off early next year to pay tuition/living expenses. I know there's an exception for Roth IRA withdrawals to pay educational expenses, but my university isn't one of the ones the federal government recognises as "qualified". With no other income, and with longterm cap gains untaxed at the lowest tax bracket, you would need to be selling a lot of mutual funds with very low cost basis shares to worry about paying substantial taxes. Take a look at how much you are selling and do a mock tax return to see.
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Jul 26, 2015 08:38
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80k posted:With no other income, and with longterm cap gains untaxed at the lowest tax bracket, you would need to be selling a lot of mutual funds with very low cost basis shares to worry about paying substantial taxes. Take a look at how much you are selling and do a mock tax return to see. Ahh, that must have been what I found before! So as long as I keep it under $36,900 (top of the 15% bracket) I should be fine? I assume any foreign earned income wouldn't count against that total (gonna start job hunting now that I'm back from visiting my partner overseas), right? The latter is more of an academic question than anything; I'd be thrilled to be making enough to offset my modest cost of living, and could split the sell-offs between this tax year and next if I needed to.
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Jul 26, 2015 08:54
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I've spent all afternoon digging around on social security/tax stuff, and figured I might as well share as there appears to be a fair amount of misinformation floating around elsewhere: If there's a totalization agreement in effect between the US and the country you're living in (seems like a lot of the cool countries have one), it's likely you wouldn't have to pay self-employment taxes on freelance income earned from the US while living there. I was pretty convinced I'd be on the hook for it based on everything I was reading from doofuses on Metafilter, etc, but actually checking the SSA's webpage made it quite clear. Fair warning that this may be related to Australia not mandating superannuation payments for the self-employed, however. Another cool and good thing I found when reading the totalization agreements is that you can use foreign work history to qualify for US SS benefits, although you probably need at least some legitimate US SS credits earned (in the case of Australia it's 6, which amounts to $1220/each, at a rate of no more than 4 per year). I was having trouble finding specifics on the calculations used, but it sounds like the benefit won't be much in most cases; it's reduced by the percentage of foreign credits used to qualify, and you would averaging in a lot of "zero" values in that 35 year benefit calculator thing as it appears to only concern US-taxed income. Still, it's better than the "nothing' I originally figured I'd be entitled to... I was thinking of going back to the US and working for 2-3 years as a goodwill gesture to my partner, and at least I know now that I wouldn't be totally flushing those SS payments down the toilet in terms of my own retirement (just mostly, sigh). Not to say that even a very limited payout like that wouldn't be means-testeed away at some point, but still might be worth looking into for some of you.
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Oct 25, 2015 06:48
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So it looks like I'm moving to the Netherlands next year; are there any American --> Netherlands expats hanging around? I'm just confused about a few things regarding taxation and social security basically. For example I'd qualify for the 30% ruling which from what I can tell is a no brainer to accept, but surely there are consequences since no free lunch etc? I would also be paid a salary in euros as well from a non-American company so goodbye 401(k) and I guess the OP says I can't contribute to a Roth IRA if I claim the FEIE. But the OP also suggests that maybe it's better to not claim the FEIE? Because I'm pretty sure income taxes in the Netherlands are way higher than in the US.
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Oct 29, 2015 14:48
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