General Discussion

Before I moved my legal residence over here, I stuck as much of my after-tax income away as I could. I already had a modest lifestyle, and that hadn't changed. I put part of it in a Roth IRA, at the end of the Cheney-Bush recession, so that I paid all taxes due at the bottom of the recession and the Dow at 7800, and could reap the benefits of the inevitable rebound as tax-paid. How naïve of me. Now, the Germans want half my income, even though my job pays me in the USA, where it is taxed. They also want half of my Roth IRA, even though I already paid 100% of the taxes due on it when I made the conversion while I was still a full-time US resident. I had enough put away to supplement the fact that between the IRS and the Germans, I am expected to pay 73% in income taxes, as well as my tax-free (under US law) retirement fund the second I take anything out of it (I haven't yet--at no point are you required to take anything out of a Roth IRA, since the very nature of it means the taxes on it were paid at the time of conversion).