Hi, my name is Oliver Collington. I’m 23 years old, I grew up in New Jersey and am a U.S. citizen but have moved to Iceland.
My goal with this post is to figure out a simple, low cost, effective investing strategy that I can implement while living here in Iceland.
Thus far, I haven’t invested into funds such as VTI nor VTSAX because I’m blocked by the European Union's PRIIPs Regulation
I have been able to invest into VUAA (through IBKR), which emulates the SMP 500 but is based in the UK, thus my investing into it triggers PFIC taxation on my U.S. taxes, which turns low cost fund into not so low cost… and likely extra tax work from what I’ve heard. It is only in the last few months that I invested some savings into the VUAA fund. Thus, I don’t know what it’ll actually cost in time and money when I get to U.S. tax filing.
I do have a brokerage account with Schwab, which I opened in Iceland and used my Icelandic address as my residence in the application form for the account. Thus I was still not able to invest into VTSAX or the like once the account was opened.
Over this past summer I requested an address change ( to a U.S. domiciled address) for my Schwab account. The address change has not been fully approved yet. Schwab is now waiting on me to complete an account update form.
But before I complete that address change, I want to know if it is likely that New Jersey will charge me state tax on my foreign income if I put a NJ address as my residence within my Schwab account?
Also, is there another viable option for low cost, simple investing as a U.S. expat in Iceland that I ought to know?
