Investment Strategies / Mechanical Investing❤
No. of Recommendations: 9
just in case it helps :
I have chosen France, the Herault region. I know it for over 40 years. sea, 4 seasons, mountains, food, wine a, good medical facilities and a US friendly tax regime. as my intent is to leave some investments here as I will always be taxed by USA unles I give up citizenship. Montpellier might suit some of you, I prefer the smaller more walkable places.
2excellent resources are on Facebook, with excellent files nd moderators who include tax experts , realtors,notaires and lawyers. I found my lawyer through them and she has been excellent.
They are "strictly legal France " and "strictly fiscal France "...there is also a democratic group in Montpellier which meets regularly, though I am not (yet) a member. There is also a handholder Alison Lounes, who many americans use, I have not needed her. she is generally held in good regard, and drums up business by being invited to UK Living Abroad shows. she has an FB site as well which you can join.
I also have EU citizenship so my transition is pretty easy, but members of my family do not, and there were no visa issues to get there.
If I can point you in the right direction I will help where I can.
Tghe 2 main issues which are troublesome if you do not detach fully from the USA , is maintaining a phone number for 2 factor authentication and whatever comes next , and maintaining your brokerge account. Fidelity lets you keep it, but you can only sell down, and no ETFs, or mutual funds , or managed accounts allowedl take you, and apparently charles schwab international will take you if you have a pre-existing schwab account.
Best of luck to all ! ping me on FB or here if you have any questions you think I might be ble to hlp with. given the recent topic on average wealth here (I am way below average) no one will have a problem moving from visitor visa status to resident.
No. of Recommendations: 4
The 2 main issues which are troublesome if you do not detach fully from the USA , is maintaining a phone number for 2 factor authentication and whatever comes next , and maintaining your brokerge account.
I see Tello recommended as explicitly allowing expat customers, and it's cheap - added a Tello SIM and text-only plan in preparation for departure to Portugal next month. Will keep my Mint account open at least until renewal later this year - it seems to work fine with WiFi calling / texting.
Citi, Schwab, and IBKR all allow expat accounts AFAIK. I have opened accounts with each and plan to move all my remaining US equities into those before I've been overseas long enough to trigger shutdowns from others. I realize a lot of expats maintain a US mailing address (n.b. forwarding services will not work, in general) and that may work for a while, but expect that it will be found out at the most inconvenient time and would rather not deal with having accounts shutdown out of the blue.
No. of Recommendations: 2
No. of Recommendations: 1
I see Tello and google vice (must be set up prior to leaving) the concern (for m) on this, is as internet security continues to develop, what will be available in the future for expats ?
thanks for Citi , I have never used them so was not aware. IBKR and Schwab are the only 2 where I know people who have successfully moved some brokerage capabilities.
cheers.
No. of Recommendations: 1
the concern (for m) on this, is as internet security continues to develop, what will be available in the future for expats ?
If you mean, in terms of being able to do 2FA and access websites, I hope more institutions move to using TOTP authentication (security keys or authenticator apps). SMS-based 2FA is awful from a security standpoint - scarcely better than asking me for the last 4 digits of my SSN as so many banks do for "verification" on voice calls - yet still so prevalent. IME it's mostly the newer / smaller brokerages (TradeStation, Tastyworks, M1 for example) and banks that use TOTP. There's also email authentication which is not ideal either, but is probably insensitive to your location.
I am trying to strip things down so within a couple of months of departure, and before actually establishing residency, my only accounts not explicitly supporting expats are unimportant in balance terms but useful otherwise. For example, I'd like to keep certain credit cards open because they have decades of history, but that does not require more than spending something on them once/year.
