To provide some context: I'm a 32 year old American; live and work in Singapore on an Employment Pass (Work Visa); I do not have any debt; I pay both SG and US taxes (yuck!); I earn a healthy amount of money, but I'm paid to a local SG bank account in Singapore Dollars; Credit cards are from local banks; CCs are paid off fully every month (only used to collect rewards); I do not have a residence that I maintain or own in the US; I do not own any substantial assets.
The Problem: I've had an amazingly difficult time trying to figure out how to best manage my money, specifically around retirement accounts / investments. I have around 75k right now sitting around doing nothing + an emergency fund + around 5k+ / month I could be investing.
The company I work for is HC'd out of Japan, and even though I'm American I'm technically hired under their Singapore entity which do not have things like 401k. I reached out to several banks in the US to try and open retirement or investment accounts, but keep getting told that because I reside in Singapore and not in the US that they will not open an account for me due to some recent (?) tax laws that made it difficult or impossible to deal with expatriates. USAA is an example of one of those I've contacted (I do have a standard checking / savings account with them though as I was in the military previous to my current career).
I thought fine, I'll look for some locally in Singapore, which the banks here do provide, but after researching the US Tax laws on these foreign retirement accounts I've come to the conclusion that the US does not recognize these types of accounts unless it's a US bank so I would still be fully taxed on any contributions I make.
I also run into somewhat the same issue with investment accounts. When looking at Vanguard, they have a warning saying they only support those residents of the US and not international on their main site. There are investment companies here in SG obviously, but I've had a hard time locating one that would be considered reputable and highly regarded like Vanguard seems to be. I will admit that I'm not very fluent regarding investing, which is probably part of the problem, but as a US Citizen paying taxes I personally feel I should be able to utilize US organizations.
The other issue that I haven't been able to figure out in my own mind is if it's even worth sending money back to a US account with the loss I take on the transfer fees and exchange rates. This may be less of a problem now, or soon, given Transferwise seems to have finally opened to the Singapore market, but I was never entirely sure if it was smart to accept those losses to have the money in the US.
I haven't been able to find too much information online for my particular situation, and most advisory services here in SG either set off red flags with me or state that they don't know US Tax laws well enough to help. Perhaps my googlefu is off, but the majority of the assumptions / information above are gathered from the limited online resources I've found and the people I've interacted with at the banks in the US and locally.
I feel like I'm rambling at this point as I'm not exactly sure how best to articulate the struggle I feel like I'm having. I guess I'll just leave it for now to get some feedback, but I'm happy to update with anymore information you may feel is appropriate to enhance the context.
Any advice / pointers is extremely appreciated.
Submitted January 18, 2017 at 03:45AM by cocasg http://ift.tt/2jJeAuY
