I know nothing about Irish taxes, so I'm taking you at your word that there are no Irish tax consequences (the non-dom part sounds reasonable) and using that as an entering assumption.
Given that, while you're still in Ireland but Ireland doesn't care about Roth conversions, you've got the same considerations as any US taxpayer. The Wiki has quite a detailed article about it, if you haven't seen it: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Roth_conversion For once, a US citizen abroad should be able to use the standard US advice, since this bit of tax is US-only for you.
If Vanguard doesn't know that you're anything other than a US citizen living in the US, I wouldn't expect them to do anything different from everybody else. Same with the timing and calculation questions.
FTC vs FEIE is a very personal situation - the best answer is to run both cases and see which is better. Very broadly, if your Irish taxes are higher than your US taxes and you're under the FEIE income limit, both of them should produce the same result. Caveats come in around tax credits (kids?), IRA contributions (only with FTC), etc. If you're over the FEIE limit, FTC is very likely better. If you've got Irish tax-free earned income that the US taxes, FEIE is probably better (saw a UK case like this the other day - rare but it happens). Lots of nuances, so tough to give a general rule.
The UK questions I can help with a bit more (I'm a US citizen in the UK).
1. The UK doesn't care about conversions that happened while you weren't a UK resident.
2. After you're a UK resident, the UK does care about what it will see as a Traditional IRA withdrawal for the conversion. You do get into a very grey discussion of lump sum vs periodic withdrawals here (the treaty treats them differently and gives US vs UK different first tax rights), but probably the consensus is that a Traditional IRA withdrawal (including conversion) is UK taxable first, then US taxable if US taxes are higher than UK (probably not - if not, FTC wipes out any US tax). But that is likely not a 100% universal interpretation.
3. I do backdoor Roths almost every year, I make a note in my UK taxes in the comment section that I've done it and it's not UK taxable. HMRC has never said anything about it. Now, if you were to use the treaty to exclude the Traditional contribution from your UK taxes and then also not pay anything on the conversion, they might have something to say - but if they've already had their tax on the Traditional contribution (since it's from earned income), they don't care about the conversion. I don't see any reason why it would complicate withdrawals - the whole Roth bucket is non-taxable in both US and UK.
4. Can't think of any other UK considerations on this case. A few of us put together a wiki article on US citizens investing from the UK, you might read through that and see if it raises any more questions? https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investi ... _residents
Given that, while you're still in Ireland but Ireland doesn't care about Roth conversions, you've got the same considerations as any US taxpayer. The Wiki has quite a detailed article about it, if you haven't seen it: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Roth_conversion For once, a US citizen abroad should be able to use the standard US advice, since this bit of tax is US-only for you.
If Vanguard doesn't know that you're anything other than a US citizen living in the US, I wouldn't expect them to do anything different from everybody else. Same with the timing and calculation questions.
FTC vs FEIE is a very personal situation - the best answer is to run both cases and see which is better. Very broadly, if your Irish taxes are higher than your US taxes and you're under the FEIE income limit, both of them should produce the same result. Caveats come in around tax credits (kids?), IRA contributions (only with FTC), etc. If you're over the FEIE limit, FTC is very likely better. If you've got Irish tax-free earned income that the US taxes, FEIE is probably better (saw a UK case like this the other day - rare but it happens). Lots of nuances, so tough to give a general rule.
The UK questions I can help with a bit more (I'm a US citizen in the UK).
1. The UK doesn't care about conversions that happened while you weren't a UK resident.
2. After you're a UK resident, the UK does care about what it will see as a Traditional IRA withdrawal for the conversion. You do get into a very grey discussion of lump sum vs periodic withdrawals here (the treaty treats them differently and gives US vs UK different first tax rights), but probably the consensus is that a Traditional IRA withdrawal (including conversion) is UK taxable first, then US taxable if US taxes are higher than UK (probably not - if not, FTC wipes out any US tax). But that is likely not a 100% universal interpretation.
3. I do backdoor Roths almost every year, I make a note in my UK taxes in the comment section that I've done it and it's not UK taxable. HMRC has never said anything about it. Now, if you were to use the treaty to exclude the Traditional contribution from your UK taxes and then also not pay anything on the conversion, they might have something to say - but if they've already had their tax on the Traditional contribution (since it's from earned income), they don't care about the conversion. I don't see any reason why it would complicate withdrawals - the whole Roth bucket is non-taxable in both US and UK.
4. Can't think of any other UK considerations on this case. A few of us put together a wiki article on US citizens investing from the UK, you might read through that and see if it raises any more questions? https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investi ... _residents
Statistics: Posted by tubaleiter — Fri Apr 05, 2024 2:05 am — Replies 3 — Views 278