Foreign Real Estate Is A More Appealing Strategy Than Ever Putting your money into foreign real estate is becoming a more appealing strategy all the time. Real estate has always made sense to me as an asset allocation, but I'm more persuaded today than ever that foreign property should be part of every investment portfolio. [...]
Banks Are Making Me Crazy! Moving money around the world should be easy in this electronic age, but, with all the banking and government rules, requirements, restrictions, and peculiarities, sometimes it isn't. This week a wire to a business I work with was rejected because the receiving bank didn't like how the sending bank had [...]
How To File Your FBAR (It's Due Friday) Form TD F 90-22.1, or, as it's more commonly referred to, the FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report) form, is due this week. Every U.S. person is required to file this form if you have a financial interest in and/or signatory authority over any non-U.S. financial account(s) that [...]
One Person's Junk... Greece's credit rating with Moody's is already in "junk" territory, and, yesterday, Spain was downgraded to just above junk quality. Things are getting interesting in Europe. A few weeks ago, I recommended that, given the current and trending status of the euro versus the U.S. dollar, as well as the disastrous local [...]
A back-up plan. That’s what many people are looking for right now. They don’t want to diversify globally altogether, but they do want to put a plan in place in case something happens and they feel like they have to get out of their home country in a hurry.
Report From The No-Go Zones I spent last week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and am this week in Belize City, Belize. Two places that the U.S. State Department thinks no American should visit. Way too dangerous. I'm not going to try to tell you that nothing bad has ever happened in Mexico or Belize. Parts [...]
Euro's Fall Creates Opportunity For Property Investors In Search Of Diversification The euro has lost 6% against the U.S. dollar in the month of May and is rapidly approaching its most recent low (June 2010) of US$1.20. Make no mistake. It's the euro losing value against the dollar, not the dollar gaining value. The financial [...]
Panama Creates New Opportunity For Residency, Not Necessarily Employment The buzz in Panama last week was an executive order (Executive Order 343) that created a new category for residency in this country. Everyone is hopeful this order will make it easier for foreign nationals to obtain residency and, critically, to be able to work in [...]
I recommend regularly that you have at least one bank account offshore…and that opening a bank account offshore can be the easiest first step to diversifying and internationalizing your life. But why? Why is a bank account in another jurisdiction such an important thing? First, a clarification. When I speak about having a bank account […]
Understanding IRS Form 8938 (Good Luck) Tax season is over, but many U.S. taxpayers remain confused about the new IRS Form 8938...including many tax professionals, it seems, given the number of e-mails I'm getting from readers asking questions to make sure their tax preparers completed their forms correctly. This new form is a catch-all intended [...]
Offshore Living Letter is a publication of Live and Invest Overseas. Our goal is to provide timely, actionable information on all things offshore, including: how to go offshore, diversifying your portfolio, wealth creation, protecting your assets, and much more.
