US Citizen seeking UK Financial Planner/Advisor

[bettyperson]

I'm an American living in Scotland with my Scottish spouse. Our financial situation is pretty straightforward with us both only earning from our UK based employment. We also have bog standard pension schemes with our respective employers. I have some old 401(k)s and a Roth IRA collecting dust back in the US. I file a return each year claiming the foreign tax credit, sumbit my FBAR, etc.

We'd like to get better organised with our combined retirement savings/investments without running afoul of draconian US tax law. We don't have heaps of cash to invest. Just looking for someone to help us plan better with our realtively modest incomes. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[antibody]

@bettyperson What you need to be aware of as a US citizen are PFIC rules. The bottom line is that you cannot invest in non-US collective investment funds such as ETFs or UCITs. You may be able to open a US brokerage account and invest in US ETFs, but you potentially run afoul of UK Reporting Fund rules. What to do? Couple of options...

Option 1: You can invest in individual stocks with either US or UK brokerages. Schwab and others provide "direct indexing" which takes away the worry of asset allocation. I don't know of any UK brokerages that offer this.

Option 2: Put all your investments in your spouse's name (assuming he/she is not a US citizen) and just invest in something like Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap on AJ Bell, Interactive Investor or any other platform.

 

[bettyperson]

@antibody Thanks. It's these sort of distinctions that I could use some professional guidance on. I have no idea if my employer funded pension qualifies as a PFIC. The language of the rules is pretty opaque, and I also don't have a firm understanding of how the scheme actually works.

It is probably best that we put any new investments exclusively in my wife's name.

 

[antibody]

@bettyperson If it's a UK-based defined contribution (i.e. money purchase) pension trust, it should not be subject to PFIC rules even if the investments are made in funds (see here).[sup]\[/sup]) If it is a defined benefit pension, the issue doesn't arise, of course.

(*) do check the pension is not based offshore, in the Channel Islands, for example.

 

[cross_product]

@bettyperson I highly recommend Mark Zoril at planvision, I’ve used him about 5 years and is commonly recommended by other expats as well as Andrew Hallam if you have read his book.

He is a fiduciary, and has a subscription based service that is very reasonable. Don’t expect someone to hold your hands for every step, but check him out along with any other recommendation you get.

I personally felt a lot more comfortable after reading millionaire expat, and started to use Mark for my 1-5 one off questions I have each year.

https://planvisionmn.com/

 

[bettyperson]

@cross_product Thanks for the tip. I'll give him a look.

 

[s1blue]

@cross_product From an expat perspective (for example I'm a USA citizen/U.K. citizen living in U.K.) what did planvision offer from a tax advantaged planning perspective? My understanding is they're good but very "stick money in these 3 funds" USA resident centric? Can they answer more complex yearly questions on something like 529 plans from U.K. and/or planning for usa/U.K. currency exchange rates etc?

 

[cross_product]

@s1blue If you sign up, you get access to the client website where he regularly posts podcasts about many topics. 529 has been discussed in that or you could ask unique questions.

If you need tax advice then yeah, he likely is not the best person for you.

Edit: I’m searching through his podcasts, he has one in UK state pension, the 529, another in college savings. He covers all sorts of stuff.

Good luck finding something that works for you, I’m not sure if Mark can give you a list of all his podcasts to check out

 

[s1blue]

@cross_product Thanks. From a regular investing perspective though does the advice cover steps to take to help hedge currency risks for expats? For example recommendations for fund that help with that versus generic USA funds?