I realize I'm getting to the point where I need to find professional legal / financial advice (a can of worms in itself - recs. on trustworthy and helpful people welcome), but thought I'd throw this out: if I sell stock in an IRA in the US, there are no consequences - just at distribution time. But how is this handled for expats? If I realize capital gain inside an IRA account, can I expect to be liable for taxes on that when a foreign tax resident?

This is particularly weird in that a couple of the institutions I hold IRAs with appear to have just done away completely with the lot information, so it's not even clear how I would determine what those notional capital gains *are*.

It strikes me that it might be on the safer side to sell everything in my IRAs before leaving the US, and repurchase to reset the cost basis later on.

US Policy FAQ

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