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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[–] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wait I’m sorry can you explain that part about it being bad post retirement? If I live in Japan and withdraw from my Roth I have to pay the Japanese gov…?

[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Not a tax expert, clearly, but I believe for Japan you'll pay japanese taxes on gains as investments (since arriving, cost basis resets then) and on disbursements as income.

Just a reddit thread, so grain of salt of course

https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanFinance/comments/p4eaxi/living_in_us_with_roth_ira_to_retire_in_japan_in/

[–] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing that! Luckily the majority of my investment was pre-Japan. I will look into this! Thanks for bringing up this confusing topic

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

Yeah, I could definitely be wrong, but it's certainly something to look into