this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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US ex pat in Denmark; Roth IRA is poison? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 2 days ago by frank@sopuli.xyz to c/personalfinance@lemmy.ml
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Hi all–

Just had a tax meeting today in Denmark, and the Danish government like a fair few other governments, recognize 401k/trad IRA investments as retirement, but not Roths. This means you have to pay annual tax on the gains for your Roth, that you can't touch until you're 59.5.

This leaves us looking at pulling the money out and eating the tax/penalty. And my questions in case anyone knows are:

  1. is that money income in the US?
  2. is there anything particularly good to do with the money? Beyond the obvious of buying a house (here)
  3. how has no one told us about this in all the posts/threads, financial advisors, etc that Roths are fairly commonly not acknowledged and are absolutely terrible if you plan to leave the US?

Thanks in advance. Sorry for my grumpy tone... I'm certainly grumpy

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[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 days ago

  1. you're exactly correct, so it's money but not like all of it or anything. It is a bummer, cuz I would've put in all into traditional if I had known, since leave the US was always a medium-term goal.

  2. this is an immigration tax specialist (specifically US/DK financials) who told me and was like yeah, might wanna get the money out of a Roth. Housing (here) is certainly an option for it, or general savings/investments, but either way it doesn't seem there is a great way to like turn it into what it's intended to be (retirement savings)

It is true for a fair few countries other than Denmark, so I guess my general advice is to be aware if you're considering leaving the US, specially in regards to a Roth