Submitted 1 year ago by ccunning@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
The Russian oligarchs all seemed to think superyatchts with fabrige eggs on board was a good idea, but then they all got seized when Russia invaded Ukraine 😅
Real Estate in NZ seems to be popular with American oligarchs such as Peter Thiel, didn’t seem to work as well for Kim Dotcom though 😅
1: Leave America.
2: JP Morgan just moved $4b in gold into its main vaults for a reason.
For example, expect Luigi’s gun to be found at auction at some point.
So what you’re saying is: any gun can be made more valuable in the long term with a bit of careful planning 😂
If your main concern is the US currency or just wanting your money to be out of US-based assets, I believe Interactive Brokers provides a lot of flexibility to move your money between assets and currencies. You’re still going to pay taxes and be subject to all US laws.
If your concern is US involvement in your personal financial affairs…good luck. The US has tremendous influence over the global financial system and no legitimate foreign organization is going to work with you unless you have substantial assets. The few countries that do not respect US influence are not particularly trustworthy and trying to do business with them will put you at significant legal risk.
You could also try converting to physical gold, but the US has confiscated gold before, so that’s not a sure bet.
Depends on how out of reach. Stocks exchanged in other, possibly hostile countries? Property in other countries that allow it (eg. most of EU does afaik)?
Just in case: avoid ‘forex trading’ and CFD, especially with MetaTrader and cTrader terminals.
Risky, but cryptocurrency. Never a bad idea to diversify a bit but maybe don’t put your whole savings there.
Outside of the immediate reach requires you to open an offshore brokerage account; however thanks to FATCA reporting requirements, most banks don’t want to deal with you unless you have significant assets under management.
Back when FATCA was first introduced I was working in private wealth management for a bank in Luxembourg, and we decided to terminate all but 3 accounts held by US citizens, all of whom had assets above 700k USD. I believe 500k was the internally communicated cutoff.
Banks in Switzerland now typically require 1M CHF to open new accounts for anyone who isn’t onshore (Swiss citizen or resident), Hong Kong, Singapore and Panama also require minimum amounts between 500k to 1M USD. I think Bahamas, Bermudas, Virgin Islands, Caymans and all the other money islands ask for even higher deposits now.
One thing you could consider are the British channel islands (Jersey and Guernsey in particular), since Brexit they’ve had a bit of an offshore renaissance. HSBC Jersey for example only requires 100k GBP to open offshore accounts (though I didn’t check about FATCA requirements since I’m not a US citizen myself).
If all you want is keep smaller amounts outside of the US, you could look into wise.com, revolut and other money transfer services, they allow you to hold different currencies in physical accounts domiciled in other jurisdictions. Read: If you deposit USD and convert it to GBP, AUD or EUR, those funds will be physically stored in UK, Australia and Belgium respectively. Since wise is a British company (revolut as well btw), the US government at least won’t have immediate access.
If there are any online brokers that accept US customers with casual portfolio sizes, no idea.
Crypto of course is also an option, but I don’t trust it enough as long term asset storage solution.
Thank you 🙏
This is a very helpful jumping off point for further research
Anytime! You could also check some blogs like nomad capitalist and others, they offer solutions like incorporating a ltd. company in Georgia (the country) or Belize and stuff, but that also comes with a host of other requirements, reporting and otherwise.
Depending on your assets, there are also some countries like Grenada for example that come with a citizenship by investment program, where you get a passport if you invest either into government bonds or buy a property that you must hold for a certain number of years. If you’d be a citizen from there and casually forget to tick the box for US citizenship when opening your Hong Kong account, you might just get away with it. (Strictly not legal, though).
Invest in a US adversary?
China? 🤔
I mean I doubt China is gonna let the US seize your assets.
(You’d be supporting an authoritarian country tho, but like… its an option 👀)
As opposed to… what?
I’ve also wondered this. Want to move and be vocal but scared of this threat.
Finally - someone who gets me 😊
Similar thoughts, trying to decide where to go
:)
you can avoid paying earned income taxes altogether by living outside of the US for more than 330 days out of the fiscal year.
this is called foreign earned income exclusion.
investment income is different; investment income is not excluded by the FEIE, only earned income, so you wouldn’t be able to avoid paying investment income tax to the US unless you immigrated to to another country.
Important note about this (though I don’t know how much you earn): you can only exempt up to 120000 dollar equivalent per year, and you must still file your taxes every year with the American government even if you don’t live there. Non-US bank accounts and investments also must be declared, even if you no longer live there.
I’m not American myself, but a colleague of mine is and she has mentioned having trouble with American agencies because some of these points (specifically the bank account point if I remember correctly).
sure, i can clarify those for you up here as well.
the max excluded income is variable, so this year it’ll be $126,500. the cap is regulated by the irs and goes up each year.
the FEIE(foreign earned income exclusion) form is form 2555, which you fill out with your regular taxes. it’s a very simple couple of pages that you fill in the blanks with the dates you were out of the country and your total earned income for the year, usually takes me fifteen minutes.
the declaration of foreign investment you mentioned is called the FBAR, an online form that takes less than a minute to fill out If you have more than 10,000 invested overseas.
If you have more than 10,000 USD invested overseas, you have to annually declare how much and which financial institutions your savings are in via the FBAR.
as long as you take the 10 to 15 minutes to fill out the FEIE, you won’t have any problems with the IRS excluding earned income.
Yeah - I’ve claimed it before. This isn’t really a tax avoidance question though.
It is, in a way. You want a strong 4th amendment.
But there’s not much left of it (1), to “make sure everyone pays it’s fair share” and later to “keep you safe from terrorists”
oh, so what did you mean by “outside the reach of the government”, just foreign investment opportunities?
well, first you would need to set up a brokerage account outside the US…
For now, though, you can invest in an Ex-US ETF, Vanguard has one that is essentially the total world stock index minus US companies.
Can a US citizen set up a brokerage outside the U.S.? If so, where?
I’m not talking about investing in foreign companies; I’m talking about where I can keep my money (other than “under the mattress”) that the federal government can’t seize/freeze.
where I can keep my money (other than “under the mattress”)
Put it around a pretty woman’s neck.
that the federal government can’t seize/freeze.
Look for a decent country’s citizen. 😉
Well, they can seize a lot of things because of reciprocal anti-terrorism money laundering agreements with most of the countries you’d want to trust with your money.
resources aimed at wealthy people offshoring their assets might be useful to you
JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 year ago
What sort of things qualify as within the reach of the government to you? I would consider the stock market outside of their reach. Bonds are, of course, very much in their reach. You can buy ETF funds that consist of non-US companies. VXUS comes to mind.