American living abroad and not working for an American company - tax reporting and bank accounts
"The IRS taxes worldwide income of its citizens and green card holders.  Generally, for those Americans genuinely living/working overseas the IRS takes the somewhat reasonable position of being in ""2nd place"" tax-wise.  That is, you are expected to pay taxes in the country you are living in, and these taxes can reduce the tax you would have owed in the USA.  Unfortunately, all of this has to be documented and tax returns are still required every year.  Your European friends may find this quite surprising as I've heard, for instance, that France will not tax you if you go live and work in Germany.   A foreign company operating in a foreign country under foreign law is not typically required to give you a W-2, 1099, or any of the forms you are used to. Indeed, you should be paying taxes in the place where you live and work, which is probably somewhat different than the USA.  Keep all these records as they may be useful for your USA taxes as well.  You are required to total up what you were paid in Euros and convert them to US$.  This will go on the income section of a 1040.  You should be paying taxes in the EU country where you live.  You can also total those up and convert to US$.  This may be useful for a foreign tax credit. If you are living in the EU long term, like over 330 days/year or you have your home and family there, then you might qualify for a very large exemption from your income for US tax purposes, called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.  This is explained in IRS Publication 54.  The purpose of this is primarily to avoid double taxation. FBAR is a serious thing.  In past years, the FBAR form went to a Financial Crimes unit in Detroit, not the regular IRS address.  Also, getting an extension to file taxes does not extend the deadline for the FBAR.   Some rich people have paid multi-million dollar fines over FBAR and not paying taxes on foreign accounts.  I've heard you can get a $10,000 FBAR penalty for inadvertent, non-willful violations so be sure to send those in and it goes up from there to $250k or half the value of the account, whichever is more.  You also need to know about whether you need to do FATCA reporting with your 1040.  There are indeed, a lot of obnoxious things you need to know about that came into existence over the years and are still on the law books -- because of the perpetual 'arms race' between the government and would be cheaters, non-payers and their advisors.  http://www.irs.gov/publications/p54/ http://americansabroad.org/" "I'll add a bit to Paul's excellent write up. Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (form 2555): notice the earned there. It doesn't exclude capital gains, interest, dividends, and basically everything that is not salary. You pay US taxes on it from the first cent. Foreign tax credit - foreign tax credit (form 1116) doesn't reduce your US tax dollar for dollar (even though it may appear that it does from the generic explanations). By using this form you may end up accumulating unused credit while still paying double taxes at the same time. Happened to me. Thank Congress for the logical and reasonable US tax laws. New FATCA form 8938: as opposed to FBAR (that goes to the FinCEN in the Treasury), this one goes to the IRS. it contains very similar info, but the threshold requirements are different. You may have to file FBAR, but not these, or you may have to file both. Being an American citizen, some European banks will refuse to provide services to you. Again, thank Congress for FATCA. It requires foreign banks to enforce US tax regulations on US citizens, and banks that won't will get penalized in the US. Many banks refuse to provide services to Americans because of that because what IRS requires is illegal in most countries. Some countries (like UK and some other EU countries) have signed treaties with the US to resolve this, but many haven't. Currency conversion - as I commented to Paul, you convert the amounts when you receive them, which may have your fixed EUR salary be converted to different dollar amounts every time. You need to make sure you do it right. Pensions, savings, investments - if you're doing these in non-US instruments prepare to be penalized. US taxes foreign investments much more aggressively than domestic. If you're investing in indexes/mutual funds, or you're a principle in a corporation, or you create a pension account - you'll get hit by additional reporting requirements and tax. Tax treaties - the US has tax treaties with many EU countries, and equalization treaties with some. The tax treaties affect the standard tax treatment by the US and some of the ""generic"" info you got here may not apply because of a tax treaty, and some other rules may apply. Equalization treaties work similarly with regards to the Social Security. Bottom line, and I know Paul disagrees with me on this - talk with a US-licensed adviser in the country you're going to. It is very important for your tax adviser to know the relevant treaty (and not read it the first time when you call him), and to understand each and every financial instrument in your country. Missing piece of paper in your tax return can cost you thousands of dollars in penalties (not exaggerating, not filing form 3520 triggers a $10000 penalty, even if there's no tax) and additional taxes."
No you will have no problems. It's been fourteen years since I've lived in the UK and I've had no trouble with my UK bank accounts in that time. They have happily mailed me statements and new cards abroad for all that time, and I've deposited cheques by mailing them to the branch. Online banking takes care of almost everything else.  The only thing I wasn't able to do from abroad was open a new account, because of anti money-laundering regulations. Even that may be possible if you presented the right kind of ID when you opened the original account - mine predated the regulations. Most UK banks will also offer 'offshore' banking for non-residents in which interest is not deducted at source. "Because the USA is the world's biggest economy - everybody in the world works with the USA (even if the american companies are not direct suppliers, they are surely somewhere in the supply chain). If USA credit rating is lower, that means american companies will find it harder to get loans to finance their business (i.e. the price of capital will be higher), and this will consequently lead to higher prices for partners of american companies, etc. This will certainly lead to slowdown of global economy. Plus, the lower credit rating also means that the USA govt. is less likely to pay off the debts (Chinese already stated they will diversify their bonds portfolio -i.e. they will start selling out american govt. bonds). This will lead to cuts in public sector in USA, less spending by the consumers, also probably less import from abroad and less travel which will affect - you get it - the ""RoW"". It's not by chance we have a saying in Europe, when USA sneezes, the rest of the world catches a flu!" A combination of the following: Shareholders pushing for larger and larger returns. Combining with Nixon opening China and the rise of foreign manufacturing. On top of this, the decline of unions and support of unions in the US. Over time, American consumers have been conditioned to buy the cheapest item. They'll sell out a competing item for pennies.   Now we live in a globalized world, so to bring back American labor, we probably have to make it competitive with cheap foreign when all costs are calculated (logistics, training, wages, etc). In China, many of the big factories are run like clockwork, with the workers living in dorms and away from their families.   If we try and legislate a solution with tax cuts for onshoring jobs and penalties to offshore, we'll probably see repercussions from China. Well, as far as anecdotal evidence goes, my SO is working on a undergraduate finance degree at U of T, and has been hired at the Canadian office of a large American bank, in a field related to IB.  That said, if it's possible to be hired at the Canadian office of an American bank, presumably it is possible to apply and 'cross-over' to an American branch in the future - all you need is to be able to get your foot in the door, and be re-hired to another position as an insider, with references from your MD, Director and Associate.  Another piece of anecdotal evidence is that many of her superiors have degrees in other subject areas. The reality is, they're looking for smart people - pedigree is probably reasonably unimportant.  I'm not sure if this information is transferable to work as a quant, though. In many ways, your discipline would be more technical, or skill based, and require less 'character' from the applicant, and more competency.  As for Montreal.. the only two schools pedigreed Americans know of are McGill and U of T, generally in that order (everyone will know of McGill, and about half of those people will know of U of T). I can imagine that either of the two schools would be an excellent choice - I am biased toward U of T for personal reasons, and also because it is located directly beside Bay Street, so the networking opportunities for the widest variety of international banks (and private wealth managers) are definitely there, but I wouldn't knock McGill, from a reputation perspective.   I think the reality is that while you should consider your options *carefully*, whatever option you choose will be based on a lot of over-thinking - it's unavoidable, and a good thing, but ultimately, I imagine, meaningless. If you're smart, driven and connected, you *will* get the job, regardless of which of those two schools you choose. In regards to your 1st question, if you are a US resident (according to IRS rules) and you have any foreign bank accounts, then you need to file a FBAR form for every year in which any of these accounts has more than $10,000. This is the way that IRS keeps track of substantial amounts of money kept by US residents in foreign accounts. Companies in the US will take care of paying a portion of your required income tax on your behalf based on some paperwork you fill out when starting work.  However, it is up to you as an individual to submit an income tax return.  This is used to ensure that you did not end up under or overpaying based on what your company did on your behalf and any other circumstances that may impact your actual tax owed. In my experience, the process is similar in Europe.  I think anyone who has a family, a house or investments in Europe would need to file an income tax return as that is when things start to get complex. "By living in Sweden and having a Swedish personal identification number (personnummer), you are required to declare your entire worldwide income for tax purposes with the Swedish tax authorities, Skatteverket. It would seem to not make any difference if some of that income is kept outside of Sweden. A company that has no permanent base of operations within Sweden should not deduct any preliminary taxes for an employee that lives in Sweden. Rather, the employee should apply for ""special A tax"" (""SA"" tax status), and pay the taxes that, had the company had a permanent base of operations in Sweden, the company would have paid. The information available on the tax authority's web site in English seems limited, but the relevant page in Swedish in your situation is very likely Lön från utländska arbetsgivare utan fast driftställe i Sverige. There is a summary at Paying taxes – for individuals. Particularly do note the summary section: When staying for at least six months, you are considered as resident in Sweden for tax purposes, and are liable for taxation in Sweden on all of your worldwide income. You must also file a Swedish income tax return. Your tax return must be filed no later than May 2nd of the year after the fiscal year. as well as that: If you stay in Sweden for a continuous period of at least six months you are considered to be resident in Sweden. /.../ As a resident you are liable for taxation in Sweden on all of your worldwide income. In some cases a tax treaty with with your ordinary country of residence  may limit the Swedish taxation. /.../ For a more detailed answer, including which exact forms you need to fill out and what data is needed, I strongly recommend that you either contact Skatteverket (they are usually quite nice to deal with, and they tend to realize that everyone benefits from getting the tax paperwork and payments right from the beginning), or find an attorney specializing in Swedish tax law. They even point out themselves that (my emphasis): the practical applications of these rules are relatively complicated and for more information you can contact the Tax Information (“Skatteupplysningen”) at 0771 567 567." "That's a tricky question and you should consult a tax professional that specializes on taxation of non-resident aliens and foreign expats. You should also consider the provisions of the tax treaty, if your country has one with the US. I would suggest you not to seek a ""free advice"" on internet forums, as the costs of making a mistake may be hefty. Generally, sales of stocks is not considered trade or business effectively connected to the US if that's your only activity. However, being this ESPP stock may make it connected to providing personal services, which makes it effectively connected. I'm assuming that since you're filing 1040NR, taxes were withheld by the broker, which means the broker considered this effectively connected income."