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

  • LungEnglish
    3•13 hours ago

    I have no idea what I’m talking about / am an idiot, but I think you have an opportunity to choose your jurisdiction here. This seems similar to how an offshore business works, where the money lives in a different country, and you don’t pay taxes on it until you “import” the money

    So adding new funds to it seems like a whole can of worms, but the money you already have there is actually still in the USA and plays by USA rules

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      2•12 hours ago

      Nope, Denmark needs to know every asset you have in every country

      Of course, you could say “just don’t tell them” but we’d be proper fucked if they found out. Of course, we’d love citizenship here someday so that’s not a great option