@carmensvineyard I was considering doing the same thing, you can use an external forex company to convert your rands to usd, EE whacks you on the exchange rate which is about 2% vs 0.3%.
To my understanding the ongoing fees are much less, but the challenge is once you exceed around 60k usd you have to worry about situs tax, which gets complicated.
@carmensvineyard With Ibkr, your money is truly out. Your money remains $ or Eur outside when you sell. Fees are lower, and more share/etf choices.
Its more work initially .
EE is more expensive, and when you sell you get R back in SA. So screwed on the exchange rate twice.
Better off just buying foreign ETFs like s&p500 in your normal account.
@thevaliantx Its not only US. You can choose location and base currency. eg. EU and Euro . All the normal rules apply. Tax only applicable on sale. Declare foreign dividends. No different to EE Foreign. You should not be paying more tax than if invested in SA alone.
not necessarily. you can withdraw funds to a USD account in a foreign country.
i've not done a USD withdrawal as of yet but I've managed to enter a foreign bank account for USD withdrawals. you can also open something like a FNB global account in USD and use that.
edit: just to be clear i'm referring to easy equities usd account.
