Talk:Non-US investor's guide to navigating US tax traps

Article development feedback
As a Canadian citizen and resident I cannot offer much in the way of content review, although from my understanding of the US tax system this is an important addition to the wiki.

However, from the point of view of wiki article structure there are some things I notice. Those are my thoughts after a quick review. Hopefully they will help with the article development. --Peculiar Investor 14:55, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * First and foremost there are no references for many of the "facts" that are being presented. For example, could you cite references to the statement "In the worst cases they can lead to outcomes such as US income tax rates of 100% on gains, loss of 40% of total assets to US estate taxes, and huge fines for non-disclosure of assets."
 * There are no internal article links to other wiki articles such as ETFs, which helps integrate the article into the wiki. I think there are many other opportunities for article links.
 * I have (finally!) added a large number of supporting citation links.
 * Most are to external sites, favouring IRS and Wikipedia as authoritative where possible. To me, our own Wiki articles on some things are too US-centric to be useful to non-US investors. For example, the ETFs page describes only US domiciled ETF structures, but non-US investors are likely to want to avoid these because of antagonistic US tax laws for NRAs who hold US situated assets. In comparison, the main Wikipedia entry on ETFs is at least somewhat more country-agnostic. --TedSwippet 13:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I can find no reference to the possibility of using a Joint Tenancy Account which may avoid the complication of US estate tax liability where both spouses are joint tenants of an investment account investing in US domiciled funds. As far as I can work out this negates the need for probate on the death of the first spouse, the funds transfer "automatically" into the surviving spouses name?--DJN 14:25, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Addressed in this forum post. Unfortunately, it appears that this will not effectively solve the issue. --TedSwippet 22:29, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

HTML formatting
I have replaced the HTML  element with the navbox template. It is very flexible and can accommodate customised CSS styles. If this template does not meet your needs, we can easily create a new template.

Of note, the current implementation of navbox does not support mobile devices. I have just created a version which will work with mobile devices. See: Module:NavboxMobile. It is currently under test, but it does work as intended. If your draft page is complete before I have completed testing, let me know and I'll perform the last step to implement this update (add this module to navbox). --LadyGeek 01:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I have replaced HTML element  with  , as   is the correct one to use for line breaks (and does not require a terminating '/'). See: HTML Elements --LadyGeek 20:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Flowchart discrepancy
"Q3. US resident?" is duplicated in the flowchart. "Q3a" is missing from the flowchart and text description. Based on the flowchart, I'd say the diamond at the left-side output of Q2 should be changed to Q3a with a corresponding new section Q3a.--LadyGeek 20:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If done, Q3 and Q3a would be the precise same question and with the precise same explanation, with the only difference being the onward destination. I found that this looked weird, so instead coalesced them into one and made the onward destination in the text dependent on which of the two possible routes led here. So yes, the text looks like it might not follow the chart, but its logic does. And Q3a is entirely absent, now absorbed into Q3.--TedSwippet 22:40, 12 February 2019

Fund tickers
Since the article compares VOO and VUSD, it might be informative to state that these aren't the only Vanguard S&P 500 ETF choices. There is also the GBP-denominated VUSA (in London) and 3140 (in Hong Kong). Perhaps there are others (not sure). -- HanSolo 09:26, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not sure this is the right place to get into the details of comparing different index ETFs. The two mentioned are simply ways to show the contrast in tax outcomes from holding the exact same underlying assets in funds with differing domiciles. Adding others seems like it would confuse, rather than clarify. This information probably belongs in a page of its own. There is one that performs this function for EU investors, but something more worldwide might be a handy addition. --TedSwippet 13:25, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Additional considerations
It may be worth mentioning certain additional considerations in choosing US-domiciled vs. overseas-domiciled ETFs. First, a given person may have limited choices of brokerages that are available within their country (typically a selection of local and some foreign ones, but perhaps not all the major foreign ones), which stock exchanges those brokerages have access to, and their fee structures for trading on those exchanges. Second, there may be differences in liquidity, asset size, bid-ask spreads, etc., for ETFs on different exchanges. While these considerations might not be decisive factors for many, there could be some who will choose a different ETF from what the flowchart would otherwise indicate. At a minimum, it may be informative to at least mention these as potential considerations. -- HanSolo 09:45, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I have added a brief note regarding the above. --TedSwippet 13:25, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Do we need a question: are you domiciled in the EU?
... with of course the answer: US-domiciled funds are not available to you. --BeBH65 20:35, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
 * A valid point. It's a bit tricky to add a whole new section in here, and the chart and process is complicated enough as it is, but you're right that there should at least be something in here that indicates that PRIIPs now pretty much locks EU residents out of US domiciled ETFs. When I get the time, I'll see what I can do to address this in a relatively expedient manner. --TedSwippet 21:05, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I have now added a brief note on PRIIPs. I keep hoping it will just go away. --TedSwippet 22:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

"Non-US investor"
With the introduction of the global, US, non-US (and USabroad) template we seem to have overloaded the term "non-US investors" with a different meaning then the one used in this document, where both US and non-US seem to be targeted. --BeBH65 16:50, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The term "non-US investor" is definitely a bit overloaded in places. We may be partly stuck with it, since it is so widely used in multiple but context-dependent ways. I have however replaced its specific uses in this page, so that the sections in it now clearly indicate which specific type of non-US investor is being addressed. --TedSwippet 09:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)