Perpetual travelers and tax on forex

France is great. I spend 4 months there, small house in the middle of nowhere and apartment in Malta for 4 months with 4 months in Asia - boys will be boys - and a few days in England which can't be avoided. It makes me a PT. I have been for years. Long live W G Hill who I met at the Reform Club in London too many years ago that I care to remember. Read the books parameswara?

All nationalities. More here.

My post a month ago in reply to a similar question is here and the whole thread may be of general interest to the original question also.

Ok- let me just cut to the chase. I am a US citizen. I have only been trading for 2.5 years(forex only) and have become profitable only in the last year.

i am in my mid 30's and in the past I have traveled for up to 2 years at a time. I once started in Belize, backpacked to Guatemala, Hondarous, Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Aregentia finally ended up back in Brazil 2 years later. Another time I started in Thailand, and although I tried to visit other counties around Asia, I just could not imagine visiting any othe place except Thailand.

I Know have a dream of packing two of my laptops and trading with a broker in another country, possibly Asian rim or something.

I hate filling out all of those damned IRS forms and I think it would be much better if I just never took the time to bore the IRS with all the details.

Based on anybodys past experinces or knowledge- Is their any particular countries that would be ideal to travel and trade in? Any country that I should definetely not consider?

How can I find out further information about tax laws or treaties pertaining to US citizens and other countries. Somebody has to have written a book or started a website.

Ty- Rippy

I can't speak with any knowledge regarding trading income and how it can best be addressed with the IRS, but I am also a US citizen and I can tell you that you want to be very careful with most countries that are advertised as traditional tax havens. This is because many of these so-called havens have allowed themselves to be bullied into full financial disclosure by the US government under the guise of the PATRIOT Act and antiterrorism. For example, Bermuda may have excellent tax laws (no taxes) but if someone in the IRS gets suspicious about your income, they will make inquiries of your Bermudan bank and the bank will fork over the data. That's not much protection as far as I'm concerned, because once the bank forks over the info, you will be prosecuted for tax evasion.

Several years ago I opened an offshore corporation and I did so in Panama. I did this for several reasons:

1. They have a substantial technical infrastructure. Some of these tax havens will take your money and it will be almost impossible to get out because their computers can't handle the tasks necessary to manage customer accounts. Some of these countries (Costa Rica comes to mind) have a hard time even keeping the lights on, let alone their banking servers.
2. They have an established record of denying the Big Brother Know-Your-Customer banking regulations that the US tries to impose on foreign institutions. IMHO - this is HUGE.
3. People in Panama are more accustomed to dealing with Americans and other English-speaking types than may be the case in other countries.

This being said, if you decide to do business with anyone in Panama or in ANY other "tax haven", make sure that you invest the dime to actually GO TO THE COUNTRY and visit the people you will be partnering with in person. When I incorporated in Panama, I had a list of places garnered from the Internet that supposedly offered incorporation and financial services to offshore entrepreneurs. When I actually showed up in person at the addresses listed (unannounced, of course), many of them simply did not exist. So I would implore you to actually do some traveling and meet these people in person if you're actually thinking about sending money to them to set up a corporation/bank account/trading account/whatever.

not exactly. do some research and you may come across the term- Comprehensive Annual Financial Report... then get pissed off!

lol.