Comment by MandieD | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MandieD | Hacker News Reader

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I'm an American who is a permanent resident of Germany, and the main reason is that the level of assets a normal middle-class wage earner can accumulate (think six figures) is not worth it to banks here to deal with the US-mandated paperwork, and so none of them will sell me stocks, mutual funds or index funds, despite my openness with both the country of my residence and the country of my birth. The only realistic savings mechanism I have given Europe's current near-zero interest rates is real estate; I can buy property, but I'm a bit hesitant to do that at the moment, given the disparity between purchase prices and actual rents. After FATCA started being enforced more heavily, there were Americans whose banks closed their checking accounts! Fortunately, I've not had a problem with very basic financial services, but no one wants to open a brokerage account for me once that American passport comes out.

If I had eight figures to manage, no matter where I was actually resident, they'd probably figure out how to deal with the bureaucracies on both sides of the ocean...

You're not actually being prohibited from opening accounts in those banks because of FATCA. Every major European country has adopted a variation of FATCA--most are actually more invasive than FATCA--and we have FATCA-related information disclosure treaties.

The problem is that the US has not agreed to disclose information back to other countries. Banks don't want to deal with the local consequences of that. It has nothing to do with FATCA.

Source: I do this for a living, and I have a great many contacts in banks all over the world.

That’s interesting. What prevents you from just opening a Vanguard account like any other American? Friction on the German side?

I have my retirement accounts from back when I was still living in the US, but I cannot add to them.

Anything I make on a non-retirement account has to be reported to the German tax authorities, too - and I'll probably have to pay German taxes on those gains when I pull money out of them. Germany taxes all income earned by its residents, no matter where the source, but if my husband (German citizen) were a US resident, they would not tax what he earned in the US.

I am considering citizenship options for the same reasons - access to financial instruments that US institutions such as the SEC prohibit, despite some of those instruments being far better than can be obtained domestically.

It can be difficult to achieve but the optimal situation is to be a citizen of a minimal or tax-free country, reside in a separate country and do business or work in a third.

Treating countries/governments like companies that have to vie for your business is a perspective that helps protect oneself and family.

In the same position, and the last time I checked Vanguard (and similar) requires that you are a US resident to open a US account.

As someone who works with a lot of American expats, what's stopping you from opening a brokerage account at Interactive Brokers or Charles Schwab? That's what my colleagues seem to do.

Once you let it slip that you live overseas, they tell you they can't help you. They can't open accounts for citizens abroad. Yup, learned that one the hard way... Thanks Obama.

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