There is no more estate duties in sgp leow, if after jonny die leow, no one will ever know how much he accumulated over the years and pass on to his beneficiaries. Foreign income take back to singapore; singapore no tax, estate no tax, its home run all the way leow.
As a non-US resident I don't have to pay any US taxes. Just have to submit a W-8BEN form to the broker. You have to update the non-US resident status by re-submitting this form once every 3 years.
So the only problem is to figure out how to arrange access to your trading account in case you die. Can think of some ways such as preparing a letter of instruction, converting my account to a joint account, etc.
For Malaysia I don't think there's a way to avoid taxes. When my Malaysian shares were being stored in Spore. Whenever I got a dividen, the Malaysian authorites would automatically deduct taxes & then forwarded the balance to my Spore account. In Spore the Spore authorities & my broker would take their cut & leave the balance to me:(
Now with a Malaysian trading account, the Spore authorities & my Spore broker can go fly a kite
In Malaysia I use a logon ID & password to access my trading account & the account is linked to my savings account. I can withdraw my funds using an ATM card. I doubt I'm liable for estate duties in Malaysia since I'm living in Spore
Found out that RHB has a nicer trading platform but they charge more per trade than Maybank. Maybank is one of the cheapest.
Actually one of the reasons I got interested in oversea trading was to avoid Spore taxes:o
Back in those days even the interest earned from banks were taxable unless you put in in POSB account.
However that's ancient history & now I find it cheaper to invest in overseas markets
It's just not worth it to invest in Spore. You got to put up with the costs $$. Even going to the casino requires "extra" fees because I'm a Sporean.
This is part of the reason I moved my investments out of Spore. Also I know that in the future I'll be spending more time outside of Spore
I'm trying to upgrade to options trading. Although you can do that with Etrade, it's cheaper with Interactive Brokers, Tradestation, etc However Etrade is good for investors who just buy & hold, since there are no charges for inactivity. Even if you don't do any trading they won't charge you a service fee. The money changer I used even gives a higher rate for amounts more than $10,000. Do note that they have to record your details for transactions of $5,000 or more. That's to prevent money laundering, terrorists, etc
Although there are now no estate duties in Spore. You never know what the future will bring
In the US it only costs US$9.99 per trade. Each trade can be anything from 1 to thousands of shares. This is with Etrade & it's even cheaper with some brokers if you are a active trader. If have a volume of at least 30 trades per month you can find better deals elsewhere
In the US you also get interest on the funds you don't use in trades. Before the financial crisis this interest rate was higher than what the Spore banks was offering
With May Bank whatever $ you keep in the trading account also earns interest. Interestingly the interest is higher rate is higher than the saving rate interest
In Spore I traded Malaysian shares via a broker from OCBC Securities. Now I can buy & sell using my computer without all the extra brokerage charges. It's definitely cheaper & you have better control over trades. It's probably cheaper than even POEMs. If you want to trade Malaysian stocks get a Malaysian trading account, if you want to trade US stocks get a US trading account, ....it's always cheaper that way.
The biggest problem is transferring the $ across the border. For my Malaysian accounts I had a couple of bundles of $50 ringgit bills in a plastic bag
Bro, perhaps it's because they found out how much you have invested.
Seriously though, u would have to be living from hand to mouth before this government will have anything for you in their budget.
Standcharts rate looks reasonable but if you're a buy & hold investor there's still the monthly charge for holding the scripts & GST on dividens. There are also plenty of dubious companies listed in Spore. Even the so called respected companies are tied to the gov't. I think this is not a healthy situation. As well the share market in Spore is not that hot with the current recession & casinos.
The interest rates you get in Spore is also lower. So even if I don't trade, the interest rate I'm getting in Malaysia is better. I do keep an eye on the exchange rate & will only be moving more funds into Malaysia when the exchange rate is 2.45 or better. The next time I decide to move $10k+ I'll consider a remittance service. The queues at JB can be very long.
Options can be a double edged sword. It really depends on how you use it. My goal is to use it conservatively to invest in the ETF market. Actually my US shares are doing ok & I can afford to set aside some funds for option trading. This is still an on-going project, will have to see how it goes
Of course I made bad choices like Lucent, Dell, AOL, Palm but made $$ in Apple, IBM, HP, Cisco, Black & Decker,..
Trading in options is safer because each ETF is made up of several stocks. So each ETF is less susceptible to volatility as you are buying into a sector. It is something where you can use technical analysis to trade. By using options you are able to risk less, as long as you don't over leverage.
I suspect you got the run around from Maybank because of ignorant staff
I simply went to the investment guy & he helped me open the account. Just make sure you have your Spore IC when you open an account.
It's easy to open a trading account. Just go to Maybankr branch at 10 & 12 Jalan Pingai, Taman pelangi. The taxi driver should be familiar with that Road. Go to the 3rd floor which is the investment centre. I went to the branch at City Square Mall but the investment guy a Mr. Nazirul isn't always there & he's normally at the investment centre in Jalan Pingai. He can help with all the paper work.
I'm a conserrvative investor & stick with the blue chips in both the US & Malaysian markets. Lehman was an outlier. I never invested in financials. I was focused more in the tech sector & as a whole they are doing ok
. After investing I left my stocks alone :o In Some cases I lost alot like when the value dropped from the $30's to less than $5 e.g. Lucent, AOL & 3com However what's important is the final result & I'm more up then down. I suspect there's more going on then what they're telling us?
The secret to my success is having a broadbased investment strategy although in the tech sector. I was working at a US MNC, a tech company & I stuck to the industry that I knew best. On top of that I used the companies purchase plan to buy the maximum number of share & those shares went up
That's why I don't understand how Ho Ching could have lost so much
Even my CLOB shares are recovering & over the years have given me dividens. I should have moved them back to Malaysia sooner. I could have avoided the security & gst charges :(
The biggest regret are my investments in unit trusts. The returns from them have been dismal, in many case this group has made loses such as as my CPF investment portfolio. I'm leaving it alone since I can't touch it anyway. I remember reading the report from some of these unit trusts & there were all sorts of investments in companies that I would never touch.
