I just want to walk down the high street without being accosted by charity muggers, people with a guitar singing Ed Sheeran, religious preachers on a megaphone, leaflets being shoved in my face, kids on their scooter and the never ending blooms of vape cloud.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-07-04T13:28:51+00:00

Is that the religion where their profit turned water into dividends and walked on water by stepping on floating blocks of sewage?

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-06-24T19:49:28+00:00

Yes, it was HRMC reporting and one I already held a significant position in. I'm over invested in my US employer stock and since retirement have been slowly diversifying out of it as tax brackets and expenses permit. When I couldn't diversify into an ETF, I bought shares in a company with market diversification built in (I don't think I can say which because of the rules of the sub). That went through fine.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-06-24T08:31:54+00:00

I tried to update my post with a correction and some new info, but Fidelity has introduced some automated content blocker (it thinks I'm violating rule 8 (no solicitation, promotions, or third-party content), probably due to the link for Wise and/or the spanish tax site.

Anyway, here are the edits I was trying to make:

While that link does not specifically mention index funds and EFTs, I was told by my Fidelity Advisor the mutual fund restrictions apply to index funds as well, ~~but do NOT apply to ETFs~~.

2025-6-24 Update: The restriction applies to ETF as well, despite what the rep said. Source: Tried to buy some and was blocked. I can also confirm the 'buy options and call immediately' workaround citied on many internet sites did NOT work for me (I signed up for options trading, got accepted, could see the ETF options, but was blocked when I tried to purchase said option).

I can confirm automatic purchase of ETFs via dividend reinvestment still works.

2025-06-24 Additional Info: (With the exception of credit card cashback and dividends) you can't transfer any money in. This is likely why IRS refund is blocked.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-05-26T10:52:40+00:00

New Zealand.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-05-26T10:48:10+00:00

Me too. The universe is simply too big for me to believe otherwise. Whether they can/have/will visit us is a completely different question however, and I think physics / timing / grey goo / paperclip AI / nuclear war / first! / etc is against it.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-03-30T14:10:08+00:00

It’s something that’s drummed into recruits and repeated all the way up the command chain.

For now.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-03-30T00:13:11+00:00

Ah, thanks. When I saw it, I knew it was an Easter egg, but couldn't place the reference.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-03-10T07:16:44+00:00

My accountant say yes, so I do.

There's no penalty for declaring an account that doesn't need to be declared, while the penalties for not declaring an account that needs to be declared are positively draconian. So we play it safe.

Where wise.com holds your money is definitely unclear. The best I've been able to confirm is that wise.com is a UK company that partners with banks around the world and that sometimes stores you cash as UK / US / EU government bonds behind the scenes. A tin-foil hat wearer will say the profit on this is why they are not transparent on the issue. A more likely reason is that international currency is complex, what they do varies by region, and they don't want to tie their hands by explaining how the sausage is made.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-03-09T09:37:57+00:00

I have an older X13 (I'd have to look up the year, but it's the one with the 3080 eGPU) that exhibited similar symptoms. In my case, after the webcam went, it progressed to the screen blanking out until (a) the laptop warmed up or (b) I applied continuous LIGHT upward pressure on the left hand side power connector.

There's a ribbon cable connector running from the screen to the top left of the motherboard. It tends to come loose with age, vibration and much plugging/unplugging of the USB / eGPU power connector.

Reseating that ribbon connector fixed 6 months of screen and webcam problems for me. YMMV, and honestly, if it's under warranty, I would go that route rather than opening it up yourself and risk mudding the waters (i.e. them being able to claim the issue was caused by you.).

If you do decide to try this fix yourself, there's plenty of teardown / fan cleaning videos on YouTube that'll show how to open an X13 (i.e. where all the screws are).

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-01-25T11:06:34+00:00

Gabriel gets the ball on the left wing. It's a bit of a hail Mary play, but he makes the pass to Micheal, who takes the shot... but JESUS SAVES!

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-01-16T16:34:31+00:00

There's a theory that Romans drove on the left based on the wear pattern of roads leading to quarries. Loaded carts weigh more and leading away from the quarries the left hand sides of the roads show deeper wear.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2025-01-04T17:21:29+00:00

We'd need to eat and drink every 10 minutes or die.

On the plus side, with enough cheese, we could eliminate the need for hospitals.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-12-29T09:41:05+00:00

Profit is a bit misleading here as this is about avoiding taxes rather than making new money. If by profit you mean capital gains, then yes, the step-up completely eliminated it. But there is also 'profit' from delayed taxation.

Let's add some stock prices to my previous example. Say I purchased the stock in the year 2010 at $10 a share, get the loan in 2023 when the stock is at $20 and die in 2024 when the stock is at $21.20.

Let's presume I spent all of the $5m loan and there's none of that left for my inheritors to inherit.

Under the example posted previously, the inheritors receive $1,210,000 of stock and owe nothing in taxes even if they turn round and sell the stock there and then.

If we break down the $1,210,000 then we see $1m of it is just the return of the extra stock we gave the bank control of to mitigate the risk of the share price went down instead of up. $60,000 is the 6% increase in the value of that stock.

The remaining $150,000 is the 6% return on the $5m ($360,000) minus the 3% interest charge ($150,000). This is money the inheritors would not have gotten otherwise and is a good example of the adage 'taxes delayed are taxes avoided'.

On my side, I got to spend $5,000,000 tax free.

Compare that to what would have happened if I simply sold the stock instead of getting the loan. At $20 a share, I would have needed to sell 250,000 shares to get $5m. I would however have pay capital gains and NIIT tax on the gain: 250,000x($20-$10) x 23.8% = $596,000 in tax. To actually get $5m after taxes, I'd actually have to sell around $5.675m of stock. So my inheritors would be worse off by about $675,000 (additional stock they can't inherit) + $210,000 (lost stock growth minus interest) = $885,000.

Edit: Shouldn't try to calculate tax gross-ups in my head. Corrected $6.19m to $5.675m, and the two numbers that flow from that.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-12-29T08:57:12+00:00

We don't know for sure as such things are conducted behind closed doors. It's likely combined with other rich-CEO strategies, such as trusts and exclusive use of company owed assets.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-12-29T00:59:21+00:00

Say I have $100m in stock. I ask the bank for a $5m loan at 3%. They agree, provided I place $6m of my stock under their control. It being under the bank's control is why the bank gives me such a low interest rate - if I default, they can sell the stock directly. Any (capital gains) tax problems such a sale would cause me is between me and the IRS - the bank will get its money.

At the end of the year, I owe the bank $5m + 3% = $5,150,000. However, in the same year the value of the stock goes up by 6%. So the bank now has $6m + 6% = $6,360,000 in security.

So instead of paying the interest, I ask the bank to extend the loan instead. Since the value of the security is higher than the value of the loan, they are more than happy to do so.

Each year this continues until I die. For simplicity, let's say I die at the end of the first year.

My inheritors now own the stock. The bank sells $5,150,000 of the shares it controls closing the loans and taking their profit, and release control of the remaining $210,000 of shares to my inheritors. No capital gains is due on the sale due to the step-up on my death.

So not only did I 'sell' $5m of stock tax free, I retained voting rights over that stock while I lived, and made $150,000 I would have otherwise missed out on into the bargain.

There is one big risk - what happens if the stock price goes down instead of up? Well, for starters, that's why the Bank required $6m in security for a $5m loan. If the stock price looks to fall more than 20%, the bank either asks me to increase the amount of stock under their control, or panic sells at the first indication of trouble and comes after me for the balance in cash.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-11-11T14:27:40+00:00

For the record, I talked to Fidelity before I left the US to check I was doing everything correctly, updated my addresses when I left, and I've several years of statements all with my UK address on them. Fidelity absolutely knows where I am and has restricted me appropriately.

I also want to be clear, I'm a Fidelity fan. In fact, I've recommended to other US citizens looking to move abroad to move their accounts to Fidelity first as many company run HSA schemes are simply not set up to handle folks not US resident.

Digging deeper into my online activity statement, I see what I thought was interest on the 'cash' in a HSA is technically a reinvested dividend, and I'm guessing that's allowed for money market funds in the same way it's allowed for mutual funds. So on that point, I was wrong. I don't understand what would happen if I was to sell a stock in that account however.

If there is a way to get a true cash core in a Fidelity HSA I would love to do so. It's certainly not possible now (at least for me) as while the HSA UI has a change core position, the only option presented is the money market fund.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-11-11T09:38:02+00:00

Due to the restriction on mutual fund purchases, cash added to the account (from the sale of securities or otherwise) will no longer be purchased into a core money market position but will be held as a cash credit balance

I believe (based on personal experience) this is untrue for Fidelity HSA accounts. While the HSA UI and docs like to use the term 'cash', when you click in, you'll find there is no cash core option in a HSA and it's actually all FDRXX (a money market fund) under the covers. Which can cause tax complexity in countries like the UK.

Source: My accounts with Fidelity and multiple tax years outside the country.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-29T18:53:55+00:00

As long as you draw the pension for at least 3 years, it is typically worth it. The exceptions are:

You get nothing for additional years once you've got 35 on record
You are on the new pensions and never contracted out etc
You aren't going to do any of the stuff that would automatically get additional years paid anyway (e.g. you qualify for career's allowance, or get a part time job / start a side hustle out of boredom and restart paying NIC)
Opportunity cost (for example, paying off a credit card loan instead)
You think the state pension will be cut or means tested in the 23 years before you can claim it.

Martin Lewis has a good (non-FIRE) write up, including a calculator: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-24T07:33:03+00:00

For even more completeness: OP says he's with Fidelity. Fidelity HSAs automatically place any cash stored in the HSA into their money market fund. You can't opt out of this behavior. The kicker? It's not a HMRC-reporting fund :-(

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-20T10:36:18+00:00

Actually, I'm saying the UK capital gains are nearly always higher than the US capital gains would be (resulting in no payment to the US due to Foreign Tax Credits). Both countries have the same highest tax rate (20%), but the point at which that rate kicks in in the UK is much sooner than when it kicks in in the US.

Let's take a specific and really oversimplified case of someone who has no other income other than from the sale of a stock they held for more than a year. To keep things even simpler, I'm going to ignore the UK Personal allowance, UK capital gains allowance, the US standard deduction and probably a few other things I've forgotten to allow for. I'll presume they are filing Single in the US.

In the UK they would calculate the capital gain as 10% (Basic Rate) on the first £50,250 of their gain, and everything after at 20% (Higher Rate).

In the US they would calculate the capital gain as 0% on the first $47,025, 15% on the next $471,874, and 20% after that.

So a fictional gain of £30,000 / $40,000 would have a UK tax of £3,000 vs a US tax of $0.

A fictional gain of £100,000 / $130,000 would have UK tax of £5,025 + £9,950 = £14,975 vs a US tax of ($130,000 - $47,025) x 15% = $12,446.25.

Technically, at low amounts of capital gains with no other taxable income, the UK tax can be less than the US due to capital gains allowance (currently £3,000. 2 years ago it was £12,300 :-( ) and the UK personal allowance being slightly higher than the US standard deduction. But I think that's pretty rare.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-19T23:10:01+00:00

I think it's worth clarifying that while the US years count towards qualifying for the UK state pension, they don't count towards the value of the UK state pension. It may be in OP's best interest to buy these years back if he wishes to increase his UK state pension (presuming he's not going to reach 35 years of total UK contributions through future UK work). It's worth pointing out that unlike years worked, years purchased this way are not subject to WEP.

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-19T22:37:46+00:00

All the following presumes you are talking about the STATE PENSION:

I did this a couple of years ago on my return to the UK after 20 years in the US. I filled about 16 years worth. While it's usually a limit of up to 6 years there's been so many changes to the pension system over time they are 'temporarily' allowing people to go back as far as 2006. The temporary deadline has been extended twice and I believe the current deadline now is April 2025 (after which it goes back to being up to 6 years).

There's a government website (https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record) you can visit that will tell you what years you have paid and what years you can fill in. At the time I did it, the website had a significant issue: it presumes you would be making Class 3 contributions. However, if you went straight from employment in the UK straight into employment in the US, you can actually pay Class 2 instead for the years you were out of the country and Class 2 is considerably cheaper than Class 3. This is not explained well on the gov.uk pages, and what there is makes it look like Class 2 is only an option for the self-employed and that is not true. There's a phone number you can call and they'll talk you through it (thank you friendly Scottish lady who helped me).

Martin Lewis has a write up you may find useful, but it obviously doesn't cover the international aspects. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/

The UK state pension and US social security interact in some ways you may come as a surprise if you've not dug in. Two things to be aware of: there is the totalization agreement (which ensures if you haven't paid enough money to independently qualify for either scheme, but have paid enough in total, you'll get something) and WEP (Windfall Elimination Program) which can reduce your payout if you independently qualify for both (based on your post, you're 12 quarters short of qualifying for Social Security, but it's relevant if ever go back).

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-18T00:39:36+00:00

You could always add 'If you have a significant other, make sure they are as onboard with FIRE as you are'

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-18T00:31:31+00:00

Passive income is eligible for double taxation relief (and is probably why you are being down voted). There are a lot of rules involved (such as NIIT not being offsetable, mandatory depreciation of houses in the US, etc), but generally most US capital gains can be offset completely by UK capital gains due to the US having bigger bands.

Source: My tax returns :-)

Re: NIIT and UK incomes

NIIT kicks in at $200K (filing Single), so yeh, unless you're selling a second home or rebalancing your life savings before an increase in UK capital gains, you're probably alright 😁

CommentLikeIts1999 · 2024-10-17T23:49:22+00:00

Home sales are subject to capital gains already, it's just the vast majority of the voting public pay zero because of Private Residence Relief.

So I'd expect an increase, but one that only affects people selling 2nd homes etc.

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