Move Abroad for Your Retirement?

Anyone with a financial interest in the United States needs to be sure that they have their wealth management and tax obligations firmly in order following the Internal Revenue Service’s introduction in February of a scheme that prevents Americans from travelling abroad if they have unpaid taxes.

The move brings into operation 2016’s ‘‘Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act” (FAST) which gives the State Department the power to refuse or revoke a passport in the case of individuals who owe more than $50,000 in federal taxes.

There are also concerns that the law has the potential to unfairly impact American expats who live abroad, particularly in cases where the IRS is acting on incorrect or outdated information. For example, an expat may return to the US and have his passport revoked and be unable to return to his family and job abroad unless he can either pay his outstanding liability or prove that the IRS is wrong.

It is easy to see why many retirement investors may be tempted by the prospect of timing the market: imagine if you could ensure that you only ever invested in stocks at the time when the market was rising and only ever sold at the time when it was cresting like a wave that is about to crash.

However, your chances of timing your trading to perfection are, in reality, likely to be comparable to predicting the jackpot numbers in the lottery and chancing your retirement savings in such a way is likely to be at best a risky proposition and at worst, a catastrophe.

The reality is that there is no scientific way to time the market. This is not to say that there are no strategies you can utilise in order to protect and grow your wealth, only that these are going to be less about timing and more about foresighted planning, i.e. investing early in order to enjoy long-term gains and having a well-diversified portfolio of retirement assets that is able to withstand the inevitable volatilities of the market.