Honestly you'd have to engage with a Private Bank and ask. They must deal with US taxpayers all the time, and it's huge risk for them if in any way they aid or abet tax evasion. So they will have programmes and policies. The big hassle is the cost (I am thinking something like 1% of Assets Under Management, but I am not sure).Neither the permanent address nor the min assets are a real hurdle, although the jet lag and getting sick on the plane are...If you are not High Net Worth Individuals (usually $1m+ assets, but it varies) then I suspect getting an international banking account could be a pain/ difficult.
What I haven't been able to figure out is whether the private banks really offer interesting services to a boglehead style investor or not. E.g., offering direct indexing or similar to compensate for the fact that US citizens can't buy UCITS funds, and/or preparing all the IRS data...You're right, thanks for the reminder!High Yield bond funds expose you to a lot of volatility. In essence, they have equity risk. Take a look at their performance in 2008/9 or 2010-12 (the Eurozone Greece crisis)? Or just about any crisis.
Also I have read with Direct Indexing you are then basically trapped to your provider, given the complexity of unwinding it.
On travel. You obviously are hit worse by these things than many are. I don't find jetlag East to West difficult (just stay up late). West to East (my home trip) can be quite brutal. Motion sickness? I assume you've tried the usual drugs? I have noticed that, as the jet stream has become generally more unstable (due to the warming of Arctic waters) the ride across has become bumpier (but the ride back to Europe has become faster due to tail winds).
One caveat. During the Greece Crisis (and Cyprus also) there were restrictions placed on withdrawals from local banks. Cyprus deposits in the Bank of Cyprus over the 100k Euro deposit insurance limit were diluted by 60%. The Eurozone contains a critical structural flaw: currency union without banking union (ie no central bailout authority with the fiscal backing of the EU states collectively).
So. Be careful of local banks, if you come from a country small enough or peripheral enough that the government cannot bail it out (recall the scale of the Credit Suisse takeover by UBS, which was only achieved by Swiss government intervention). If you hold securities, as opposed to deposits, you should be relatively safe - but PFIC will then hit you? So you might want to directly hold very safe government bonds. (Although I think that generates a tax problem in the USA re exchange rate gains/ losses?). Rental properties might be another way around PFIC, although I don't generally recommend these (because of all the risks, tenant issues etc).
Statistics: Posted by Valuethinker — Fri Mar 14, 2025 5:17 am — Replies 10 — Views 970