I am too ill with leukemia to keep trying to file my own US returns. So I need to find someone who can help me file. I was rejected as a potential client by my brother’s sophisticated and expensive tax attorney in the US yesterday.
I do NOT think my taxes are terribly complicated; just some mutual funds in Scwab US, which I will be selling down over a couple years; an IRA bene at Fidelity which my father left to me 13 months ago when he died. Again, I’ll be selling that down about 1/9 each year for 9 years. Will retire (too sick to keep working, too I think), so no income. And a tiny amt of $ each in PO bank here, DBS here, Fubon here with negligible interest income. That’s it.
Any US friend who is already filing their own, with mutual funds schedule D, could probably easily handle them for me and I’d be willing to pay them for the trouble of doing mine too each year but am not sure who would be willing. I don’t think any real expertise is required if you are already doing similar taxes. It’s just a few hours each year to sit down and help me do them.
My wife Dragonbabe (Anita) is Taiwanese, and not remotely capable of tackling the task, but she can definitely handle showing up at the Twn tax office and letting them do that side of things; as you know, it is easy here. The problem is the US returns.
I’d love to stop being required to file, but the IRA above needs to be drawn down slowly, so that’s not gonna happen.
We have already put my sons, US citizens, down as my beneficiaries at Schwab and Fidelity, and will do the same with a rewritten will. This overrides any will, acc. to Schwab. Then it doesn’t matter how slowly we liquidate those, even if I pass away suddenly. She would not challenge this in court to get her default share, and would really be the one in control of the $; do you see any sticking points on this issue?
This way the IRS can’t try to grab 50% from anything Anita inherits from me, which is how badly they treat foreign beneficiaries even if they are your spouse. Might need a couple of witnesses to sign and chop that in the next couple days – any volunteers? I am quarantined, so I would hand write and sign it, send it home with Anita, and have her meet the witnesses (with her wearing full facial visor, N95 mask, gloves).
BTW we have a joint account at empeople (fka Deere Employee Credit Union) in the US, so anything that we liquidate and put in that is safe from the IRS’s 50% grab because it is already co-owned by Anita (although it’s still taxable at each liquidation).
