Exit Tax Cash Exclusion on US IRA’s/Brokerage Accounts
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 5:27 pm
My questions are fairly technical and we will need to speak to an expert, but I am curious if anyone else has done something similar. Can you recommend a Japanese/US accountant that deals with these type of complex issues?
TLDR: Can we sell equities within our U.S IRA’s, which is considered a Trust held by the custodian, and convert to cash prior to departing Japan that doesn’t trigger a taxable event or any documentation within the U.S. thereby avoiding the Japanese exit tax?
TLDR 2: Upon reading the below taxable events that trigger the exit tax is it possible to create a U.S. Trust with assets held by a U.S. LLC to hold our brokerage accounts? As an LLC member we would technically not own the securities but the LLC would?
Relevant Taxable Events:
- Securities
- Equity in silent partnership contract (tokumei kumiai keiyaku)
- Unsettled derivatives transactions
- Unsettled margin transactions
- Unsettled when-issued transactions
Japanese spouse and I (US) are considering moving to Japan. We will both be 50 when we arrive and don’t plan on working. We will be ineligible to access both our Roth IRA accounts and both our Traditional IRA accounts without a large tax bill and penalty’s by the U.S. given we need to be 59.5 years old. We will both have brokerage accounts as well plus other income sources to live on while in Japan.
We expect the combined total of all the IRA and brokerage accounts to be in the neighborhood of $1,000,000 split between the two of us with approximately 70% in my name.
Ideally we will both be in Japan for less than 5-years but things happen and it’s possible we stay longer. I am aware of the annual reporting requirement for my wife and myself if I stay long enough to be a Permanent Resident.
I understand the exit tax does not count cash, by temporarily selling IRA assets to convert to cash we can tell the NTA we have cash but not equities. Since there is no documentation to create a taxable event in a trust held by a custodian not in our name would this get us around this problem?
What about putting our brokerage accounts into an LLC where we would be a member and technically would not own the equity’s?
TLDR: Can we sell equities within our U.S IRA’s, which is considered a Trust held by the custodian, and convert to cash prior to departing Japan that doesn’t trigger a taxable event or any documentation within the U.S. thereby avoiding the Japanese exit tax?
TLDR 2: Upon reading the below taxable events that trigger the exit tax is it possible to create a U.S. Trust with assets held by a U.S. LLC to hold our brokerage accounts? As an LLC member we would technically not own the securities but the LLC would?
Relevant Taxable Events:
- Securities
- Equity in silent partnership contract (tokumei kumiai keiyaku)
- Unsettled derivatives transactions
- Unsettled margin transactions
- Unsettled when-issued transactions
Japanese spouse and I (US) are considering moving to Japan. We will both be 50 when we arrive and don’t plan on working. We will be ineligible to access both our Roth IRA accounts and both our Traditional IRA accounts without a large tax bill and penalty’s by the U.S. given we need to be 59.5 years old. We will both have brokerage accounts as well plus other income sources to live on while in Japan.
We expect the combined total of all the IRA and brokerage accounts to be in the neighborhood of $1,000,000 split between the two of us with approximately 70% in my name.
Ideally we will both be in Japan for less than 5-years but things happen and it’s possible we stay longer. I am aware of the annual reporting requirement for my wife and myself if I stay long enough to be a Permanent Resident.
I understand the exit tax does not count cash, by temporarily selling IRA assets to convert to cash we can tell the NTA we have cash but not equities. Since there is no documentation to create a taxable event in a trust held by a custodian not in our name would this get us around this problem?
What about putting our brokerage accounts into an LLC where we would be a member and technically would not own the equity’s?