Don’t Leave the U.S. Before Watching This

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]If you're planning to leave the US, don't make these mistakes.

[00:00:04]Whether you are leaving because you're an expat or you're an immigrant, temporarily or permanently, if you have assets in the US, the biggest mistake you can possibly do is to cash out and take everything with you, particularly if it's retirement assets.

[00:00:21]Tax-wise, it could be very expensive.

[00:00:23]There countries that will tax that plus the US will tax you as well for premature distribution. So, there's taxes and penalties. So, you could lose maybe half or even more in some instances of your retirement assets.

[00:00:37]That's why it's better to leave it here.

[00:00:40]But, what you want to do is that you want to roll it over to an IRA. And then, when you turn 59 and 1/2, you can either take it or you can do a Roth conversion either that time or along the way.

[00:00:52]Whatever the tax makes sense given the new tax regime you're in.

[00:00:56]The important thing though is that you need to talk to someone who is a specialist like myself that have a good grasp of estate taxes and income taxes so you do the smartest thing. But, in general, it's really good to leave the money in the US because the US stock market has historically over the last 20-25 years done much better than most stock markets in the world. If you'd like to discuss this further, please reach out to me.

[00:01:22]All the best.