Time to figure out investing (US citizen living in Berlin)
Hi all, I have been procrastinating this for years, scared of doing the wrong thing, but I am almost 30 and I have not a dime to my name and I need to change this. I would love your advice/recommendations before I put my plan to action. Feel free to be brutal!
I am a US citizen living and working as an FTE in Germany, filing annually via myexpattaxes.com. In terms of investments, we have a family LLC with which we bought a house, so I file a K-1. This has been very manageable. Beyond this, nothing. I would really like to start investing in stocks. I recently opened an Interactive Brokers account (IB Ireland entity, Berlin address), but I have not yet invested. I would like to invest my humble savings and then a portion of my monthly income into US-domiciled ETFs (VOO, VTI, VXUS) only, avoiding UCITS entirely due to PFIC concerns.
Do you see any risks here?
I would also like to better understand how much complexity it adds to my tax returns:
USA: Does purchasing US-domiciled ETFs through Interactive Broker's Irish entity (as a US person with a German address) create any unexpected complications on my US return vs. using a US-based IB entity? In other words, can I keep using myexpattaxes or will I need to hire someone for thousands of euros to do it for me?
GERMANY: Interactive Brokers should be automatically withholding German Abgeltungssteuer (25%) on my behalf given my German address. Can anyone confirm this is the case for US persons using IB Ireland? In other words, do you foresee any complications on the German side, where I file with WISO Steuer?
Thank you all.