Bogleheads.org

For Americans living outside the US, and especially for ones living in countries where they are barriers against foreigners buying property and/or land directly, I think that they make a certain amount of sense.

Almost all your IRA questions are answered in pub 590. Income. You must include in your gross income distributions from a traditional IRA that you would have had to include in income if you had not converted them into a Roth IRA. These amounts are normally included in income on your return for the ...

I'd like to characterize funds from my conventional IRA to a Roth IRA and have the conversion be a taxable event for my 2012 taxes. Is December 31, 2012 the deadline to do that, or can it wait up until the time that I file my taxes (probably April 15, 2013)?

I have no financial advice to offer. However, one of the most notable aspects of a multi-year professional stint in a european country years ago was how miserable several Americans I worked with were. Perhaps, assimilated Americans were not as visible, because they did not complain? That's a hard n...

I've noticed that there are a few members here who seem to be happily retired overseas, sometimes early. The idea certainly has appeal to me, both due to the promise of new cultural experiences and the potential for reduced cost of living. I am also pessimistic enough about the rising cost of healt...

If you have a good pension there are a number of countries in which you can get a "retirement" visa indefinitely. For example, Thailand will let you stay indefinitely if you either have a $27K per year pension or else park $27K in a Thai bank indefinitely. And then you'll find that if you...

For instance, I really enjoyed living in Colombia but I could not stay there full-time due to visa issues as I have no pension yet. Hi Kramer, Does this mean that someone with a U.S.-based pension can stay in Colombia for extended periods of time or even indefinitely? Is there a low limit on the pe...

Been there, done that, and many of my current friends have done the same. I retired early in Singapore, moved to Thailand, went back to work part time as a consultant, and now am retired again in Thailand. In considering retiring overseas one needs to recognize that finances are only one aspect of r...

In my field (engineering) it seems like salaries in high cost areas tend to not be high enough to fully offset the higher costs. That's one of the reasons that I wound up spending most of my career working in Pennsylvania instead of California.

Turbotax handles that scenario correctly. But what I think that you'll find is that even though you are below the Foreign Income Exclusion limit and your US tax liability is $0 now, the IRA conversion will be taxed at the same same marginal tax rate as if you were living in the US and receiving the ...

cbeck wrote:Unfortunately, the new mobile app does not support multi-currency features. Makes it useless for me.

Disappointing. And my Samsung Galaxy S3 isn't yet on their list of supported devices either. So I guess that there's no need to rush out and upgrade.

For me the useful thing in Q2012 vs Q2011 is that Q2012 will automatically update currency exchange rates. Now that is good news. I am British and have UK bank accounts and investments, so it would be great to get the rates updated automatically. The nice thing about it is that it not only supports...

For me the useful thing in Q2012 vs Q2011 is that Q2012 will automatically update currency exchange rates. As for Q2013, if I buy it it will probably because they now have an app for Android devices. But unfortunately that app doesn't appear to be compatible with my recently purchased Samsung Galaxy...

Only people that have contacted me about jobs via Linked-In are headhunters who seemed to know nothing at all about my industry.

That was me until I lost my job of 24 years in 2008. In retrospect it was a good thing that I was layed-off. I think that it's 'job security' that's the real trap. I've been working as an independent contractor since that fateful day in 2008 when I lost my job and found that I could make about twice...

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers.

I have accounts in Singapore and Thailand, but some people report having trouble opening accounts in those countries if they are not considered to be residents there. It does not complicate filing a 1040, though I if all you are looking for is exposure to foreign currencies then they may be easier w...

Many non US banks won't deal with me for investments overseas because I am American. Why is this relevant as long as there are enough banks that work with Americans? Look for banks that don't do business in the US. They couldn't care less about US laws. It's not much of an issue if all you want to ...

ThatGuy wrote:Not that it matters with MP3s, but if you want an accurate rip you should use EAC. EAC Guide.

I wondered how long it would take before someone suggested EAC or dBPoweramp. Don't really see the reason to waste time making rips to mp3 when you could just as easily make lossless rips.

Some expats and accidental Americans are now seriously questioning this policy, with Canada leading the charge. I imagine the number of people renouncing US citizenship in 2011 will reach another record high. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/flaherty-slams-irs-over-cross-border-tax...

...Why the US government thinks it's their right to tax passive income earned outside of the US by people who live outside of the US is beyond me, but the average Joe living abroad is not as likely to play games about reporting his passive income if he knows that the IRS already knows about his for...

Hello and thanks for reading. This may seem like a troll post at first but I assure you it's not. A Hong Kong LLC (with my father as the sole shareholder) owns some Hong Kong stocks (held in Hong Kong Dollar) in a Chinese brokerage account (an account on Mainland China). This sentence has spells a ...

The best solution to reducing the workload would be to raise the total value of foreign accounts that triggers the filing requirement at all. But yes, electronic filing will be welcome if they can guarantee privacy. I've never really understood the purpose of these forms, though. At $10,000 it just...

I also vote for petroleum. I've posted this in another threads, but check out payscale.com. Engineers with a 4 year degree are at/near the top of the list of high earning grads and petroleum engineers earn the highest salaries and chemical engineering is #2. Petroleum Engineers are often required t...

That seems to have improved recently. They must have received a lot of complaints about it. Not sure that it was really a week that it was taking before, but even 3 days seems excessive. I haven't seen any improvement here. My partner makes a recurring deposit from Bank of the West into our joint c...

Incoming ACH transfers scheduled through Everbank (ie. pull from another account) takes 1 week to be available. If you can, better to schedule them from the other institution. That's insane. I didn't think it was legal for a bank to take more than 3 days on an ACH. That seems to have improved recen...

predict the date of the bottom for the US dollar and you will have our peak for gold, perhaps. USD not looking so good right now - shoulda-coulda-woulda been in AUD these last coupla years. AUD has been getting killed in recent days, maybe not as badly as common stocks denominated in USD but not fa...

Hi Grok, Thanks for checking on type of bonds - to clarify, the ones I am looking at are definitely issued by the Australian government. Here is a link with some details. if of interest. http://www.rba.gov.au/fin-services/bond-facility/xls/otc-prices.xls Take care Energy Does one need to be an Aust...

Whatever you do, don't try to sell it to passersby. It doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCjzpdivl0I :wink: Funny video but it's really no wonder that people wouldn't pay $50 for a 1 ounce gold coin to an overbearing guy who approaches them on the street. His approach was really not that...

Whatever you do, don't try to sell it to passersby. It doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCjzpdivl0I :wink: Funny video but it's really no wonder that people wouldn't pay $50 for a 1 ounce gold coin to an overbearing guy who approaches them on the street. His approach was really not that...

Two economists are walking down the street and seeing a $20 bill lying on the sidewalk. The first economist says, “Look at that $20 bill.” The second says, “That can’t really be a $20 bill lying there, because if it were, someone would have picked it up already.” So they walk on, leaving the $20 bi...

Where would be the best place to sell above coin? Purchased it in the 80s but cannot remember what I paid for it. It is actually a set with graduated smaller gold coins included. I am not going to get $1,200 for the one ounce one but how much could I expect to sell it for and where? Checkout Kitco....

Question - What mail forwarding services have people used, and what level of satisfaction do you have with the service? Question 2 - If one uses a service like USA2Me, which provides a Texas mailing address and mail forwarding abroad, is one considered a Texas resident subject to Texas income taxes...

Nothing is "always true" in every single case....except perhaps the speed of light. I don't think that changes depending on location and time. Moreover, it's not surprising that the more "impressively modern" a place is, the more expensive it is. One thing that I found out that ...

When I noticed that the dollar was dropping back around 2003 or 2004 I toyed with the possibility of buying some Canadian Real Return Bonds (RRBs--I'd call them Canadian TIPS but it's the other way around, TIPS were modeled on RRBs). That is, I spent an hour online trying to figure out whether it w...

I'm wondering how fees get paid. Let's say the insurance will pay 80% of the bill. How would it work if you had something done overseas, for example in Thailand, where prices are much cheaper than in the US? My insurance will pay for any medical treatment world-wide, so long as the treatment is leg...

Send her to someplace like MIT or Cal Tech if it's in any way feasible. This isn't the place to pinch pennies. Of course Sand Box University will be cheaper, and you'll be able to find people who will rationalize that their education from there was "just as good" as one from MIT. If you se...

i use a strong encrypted MS Word File. free, simple, easy, effective, universal, ubiquitous, open/non-proprietary, non-black-box, free-flow format. When did MS Word become "open/non-proprietary"? it's "open/non-proprietary" in the sense that its standards are open to and used by...

Unless you are managing huge numbers of passwords, I think these password tools aren't that useful. It's sort of a manufactured need for most people. Passwords are like keys, and you hang your keys on a hook next to the front door. I try to use the same passwords for as many things as possible, and...

I'm know that I'm minimally computer literate, especially with security issues, but I just keep a list of my user names and passwords on a flash drive; What is the risk with this method (other than the obvious of my losing the flash drive)? Thanks, Wayne Aside from the possibility of losing the fla...

no. not paranoid enough. I didn't think to include this in the original post or poll: What strategy do you use regarding passwords. Do you repeat the same logins & passwords? Do you write them down? I repeat as much as I can, although each is slightly different due to various sites' protocols a...

However, they are technically capable of playing 720p HD video Actually most netbooks fall short of being able to support full 720p resolution. The 720p standard is 1280x720 pixels; many popular 10" netbooks have monitor panels with only 600 pixels in the vertical direction. They can play them...

They can all play standard DVDs from an external drive that attaches through a USB port. They will not be able to play Blu-Ray DVDs from an external drive (if you could find one). However, they are technically capable of playing 720p HD video (you might have to make sure nothing else is running on ...

Blueray on a netbook might sound good in theory but netbook screen sizes generally limit you to less than HDTV resolution anyway and the processors on most are only marginally powerful enough to play back HDTV source without stuttering and/or pausing. I travel with a Asus 1000HE netbook and find tha...

Must have either been a nice buffet or an extravagantly expensive hotel. $40 is closer to what western kids backpacking though Vietnam spend in a week on food than to what a single meal costs there in restaurants good enough for businessmen to take clients; Saigon is not Tokyo in terms of restaurant...

I am an early retiree living off of my assets and applied for the card earlier this year. I have lots of assets and decent credit and have had no debts for many years. And a 6 figure Schwab account, which isn't even my main brokerage account, that I have had for something like 10 years. I own no re...

According to their product description, there are no fees. It's not that there are no fees it's that they are hidden. As described above, they make money off you on the currency change rates that they apply at each end of the translation and by paying out less interest than what a similar mix of cu...

Aside from structured products like these sounding gimmicky, the main problem that I have with Everbank's foreign currency products (such as their conventional foreign currency CDs) is that they aren't transparent about their exchange rates. While they assure you with words to the effect that you lo...

I am really curious if anybody has considered retiring as an expat for any number of reasons. Even better would be hearing from those of you who have done it! Lengthy "vacations" or whatnot lasting several months or longer would also get to the heart of it I suppose...I don't know if any ...

Crazy isn't it? O.J. stays..."Charlie Hustle" can never get in with 4256 hits, and leading the NL in hits seven times and in runs four times. OJs in the Baseball HOF? Pete got tons of hits, but never slice up folks like OJ did. I don't see any contradiction in it really. Major League Base...