follow up: moving to Japan! Please give me some advice about what brokerage to use to continue holding my current U.S. stocks and buying more!!

[christianzealot4]

Hi all, I posted a few days ago but I wanted to make a follow up post,

I will be an expat in Japan in 2 months (moving from U.S.). I have American Permanent Residency and Japanese citizenship. I have a re-entry permit, so I can stay in Japan for up to 2 years, but after that I may lose my American green card (though I have read online that as long as you pay a sizable amount of taxes to the U.S. and be an "asset" to them this is not the case)

I currently go through a brokerage in the U.S., one with E*TRADE and one with SoFi. However I am thinking about switching over trading platforms to something that is better suited to be used in Japan. I want to have access to the U.S. stock market and be able to hold onto the current stocks I own, without being told to liquidate my position due to them finding out I live overseas.

Here are some of the things I am looking to do through the brokerage:

-continue to hold U.S. stocks that I currently own.

-buy more U.S. stocks

Would be nice but not necessary:

-buy options on U.S. stocks

-enter long and short positions on U.S. and Japanese stocks

And here are some brokerages I read online could potentially be of interest to me:

-Schwab (make an account before moving to Japan and continue to use through parent's U.S. mailing address)

-IBKR (interactive brokers)

And here are some less popular but also maybe just as good options for brokerages:

-Tradestation

-Mexem

-Firsttrade

-Captrader

-Tradezero international

If anyone here has any other suggestions or insightful comments about my situation, please chime in!! Sorry I know I have been posting a lot on here lately, I am pretty new to all of this and I realized I need some advice, and thankfully this community has been extremely understanding and helpful. Thank you all for your time!!

 

[dee436]

@christianzealot4 It sounds like you are a "US taxpayer". Please use the "US taxpayer" user flair; see the sub's rule #6.

You may find having a tax obligation to the US and Japan and trading will result in manual effort to file taxes on at least one side. If you go with a US brokerage, they will issue a 1099 for your US taxes, but you will need to figure out your Japanese tax based on all of the transactions yourself. If you go with a Japanese brokerage and a designated account (特定口座), then they will figure out the Japanese side of taxes for you, but you will need to figure out the US side yourself (they won't issue a 1099). Additionally, I'm not aware of a Japanese broker that offers designated accounts and lets US taxpayers hold US stocks. Interactive Brokers Japan (IBSJ) lets US taxpayers hold US stocks but does not offer designated accounts currently.

Maybe your best bet is to go with a US brokerage, but be prepared to keep track of things yourself for Japanese tax purposes.

 

[christianzealot4]

@dee436 thank you for your thorough response! what is a "designated account"...?

 

[dee436]

@christianzealot4 See this post about designated accounts. Also, please update your user flair to "US taxpayer".

 

[69inforever]

@christianzealot4 I've been using TD(now Schwab) for the past 6 years without any issues.

 

[ethzz]

@christianzealot4 Not for trading, just long term holds, but I think vanguard allows accounts that pre-exist your expatriation to continue being used here. Similar for FirstTrade.

I'd recommend not relying on just one broker--things may change. IB used to be great, but they've changed and now have operations here, which most people have been moved over to (that previously were using the US 'flavor' of IB).