Hi everyone, I feel like this is a really basic question but after the research I have done this far including on this site,I am still quite lost:
A US based ETF (bought on TDAmeritrade in my case), in terms of dividends will pay 15% in L2TW but it can be recouped later so it’s basically 0%? Am I missing something? This is what I got out of the great post on taxes on the main site…
I am trying to figure out if I should invest on a european or US broker… This becomes relevant also when leaving Switzerland because in my home country 15% will be withhold by default in the US, that I know for a fact. I hope someone here can tell me it’s an obvious choice so I can check this out of my list. It would be of great help.
I have been advised to stick to the US versions of the ETFs bought on a US broker, sell everything just before moving out and buy again. (Back home there are taxes on capital gains.) All this between changing fiscal address… Is this normal practice?
Thank you in advance.
Tax optimisation for ETF investing
Domicile of broker is (often) irrelevant in terms of taxes.
Though most European brokers won’t offer US-domiciled ETFs.
And Switzerland has its own taxes through Swiss brokers.
The question is a bit too generic, it depends a lot on which country you’d move to and the relevant dual taxation treaties, as well as how they implemented PRIIPs.
Sometimes resetting the cost basis is enough before the move, sometimes the cost basis is reset when changing residency. In some cases depending how PRIIPs is implemented it might be advantageous to keep an open position to a US ETFs (might be able to increase a position but not open it).
Some countries might have different tax handling and e.g. accumulating fund might be better, or you can take advantage of a tax treaty and use a local fund (like in NL where you can achieve a 0% drag on US holding with a local fund), etc.
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Good to know that is irrelevant (most of the cases). That is already quite helpful . Thank you.