US ISA equivalent for tax exempt investment & savings
As far as I know, there is no direct equivalent. An IRA is subject to many rules.  Not only are there early withdrawal penalties, but the ability to deduct contributions to an IRA phases out with one's income level.  Qualified withdrawals from an IRA won't have penalties, but they will be taxed as income.  Contributions to a Roth IRA can be made post-tax and the resulting gains will be tax free, but they cannot be withdrawn early. Another tax-deductable investment is a 529 plan.  These can be withdrawn from at any time, but there is a penalty if the money is not used for educational purposes. A 401K or similar employer-sponsored fund is made with pre-tax dollars unless it is designated as a Roth 401K.  These plans also require money to be withdrawn specifically for retirement, with a 10% penalty for early withdrawal.  Qualifying withdrawals from a regular retirement plan are taxed as income, those from a Roth plan are not (as with an IRA). Money can be made harder to get at by investing in all of the types of funds you can invest in using an IRA through the same brokers under a different type of account, but the contribution will be made with post-tax, non-deductable dollars and the gains will be taxed.
In 2015 there's a $5.43M (That's million, as in 6 zeros) estate exemption. Even though it's $14K per year with no paperwork required, if you go over this, a bit of paperwork will let you tap your lifetime exemption. There's no tax consequence from this.  The Applicable Federal Rate is the minimum rate that must be charged for this to be considered a loan and not a gift. DJ's answer is correct, otherwise, and is worth knowing as there are circumstances where the strategy is applicable. If the OP were a high net worth client trying to save his estate tax exemption, this (Dj's) strategy works just fine. As you are in UK, you should think in terms of Tax Free (interest and accumulated capital gains) ISA type investments for the long term AND/OR open a SIPP (Self Invested Pension Plan) account where you get back the tax you have paid on the money you deposit for your old age. Pensions are  the best bet for money you do not need at present while ISAs are suitable for short term 5 years plus  or longer. No; it's a bond, not a wrapper like an ISA. You can buy more bonds, assuming you do this before they run out. And it's a retail bond, so you can't sell it; you have to leave the money tied up for the term. Remember, once you take cash out of an ISA you can't put it back - though you could of course put it back using this year's (£15k) allowance. And as the bond has 20% tax deducted at source, it's maybe not a good idea to take money out and lose its tax free nature. You can get 2.4% tax free from Coventry Building Society. If you havent yet maxed out your ISA, then its a no-brainer. You get excellent tax rebates and its silly not to take advantage of these before considering self investing in shares.   Note that even if your ISA is maxed out, the economic turbulence means that investing in individual stocks is an intimidating place for beginners right now.  The FSA is also looking at revising the average percentages used for pension, from 7% for adventurous investments, down to 5% or 6%, so there is industry wide recognition that on average the stock market is going to be a little less lucrative than it was a few years ago. Thats not to say you cant still make a whopping profit, but the chances of you doing so as a first time investor are remote to say the least. My advice would be to look seriously into some of the social lending sites, where you can still easily get a 7% return with minimal risk. Whilst I do have a portfolio which is performing well overall (I am a very speculative investor), I am moving a lot of funds into Zopa.com, as I am averaging 7% return with a lot less time, effort and risk than the stockmarket.  Whatever you decide, I think its time you thought about consulting an IFA. They can help you understand what sort of risk you are willing to tolerate, which is a very important aspect of investing. "Welcome to the 'what should otherwise be a simple choice turns into a huge analysis' debate. If the choice were actually simple, we've have one 'golden answer' here and close others as duplicate. But, new questions continue to bring up different scenarios that impact the choice.  4 years ago, I wrote an article in which I discussed The Density of Your IRA. In that article, I acknowledge that, with no other tax favored savings, you can pack more value into the Roth.  In hindsight, I failed to add some key points. First, let's go back to what I'd describe as my main thesis: A retired couple hits the top of the 15% bracket with an income of   $96,700. (I include just the standard deduction and exemptions.) The   tax on this gross sum is $10,452.50 for an 'average' rate of 10.8%. The tax, paid or avoided, upon deposit, is one's marginal rate. But,   at retirement, the withdrawals first go through the zero bracket (i.e.   the STD deduction and exemptions), then 10%, then 15%. The above is the simplest snapshot. I am retired, and our return this year included Sch A, itemized deductions. Property tax, mort interest, insurance, donations added up fast, and from a gross income (IRA withdrawal) well into the 25% bracket, the effective/average rate was reported as 7.3%. If we had saved in Roth accounts, it would have been subject to 25%.  I'd suggest that it's this phenomenon, the ""save at marginal 25%, but withdraw at average sub-11%"" effect that account for much of the resulting tax savings that the IRA provides.  The way you are asking this, you've been focusing on one aspect, I believe. The 'density' issue. That assumes the investor has no 401(k) option. If I were building a spreadsheet to address this, I'd be sure to consider the fact that in a taxable account, long term gains are taxed at 15% for higher earners (I take the liberty to ignore  that wealthier taxpayers will pay a maximum 20% tax on long-term capital gains. This higher rate applies when your adjusted gross income falls into the top 39.6% tax bracket.) And those in the 10 or 15% bracket pay 0%. With median household income at $56K in 2016, and the 15% bracket top at $76K, this suggests that most people (gov data shows $75K is 80th percentile) have an effective unlimited Roth. So long as they invest in a way that avoids short term gains, they can rebalance often enough to realize LT gains and pay zero tax.  It's likely the $80K+ earner does have access to a 401(k) or other higher deposit account. If they don't, I'd still favor pretax IRAs, with $11K for the couple still 10% or so of their earnings. It would be a shame to lose that zero bracket of that first $20K withdrawal at retirement. Again working backwards, the $78K withdrawal would take nearly $2M in pretax savings to generate. All in today's dollars." As far as I know there is no legal or tax implication to you gifting money to your partner for her to save in a H2B ISA, or for any other purpose. You are also wrong when you say that you cannot withdraw money from the accounts - you can.  Of course you probably won't want to because withdrawing money for any other purpose means losing the government bonus, but if you really needed to you could. An H2B ISA counts as a cash ISA so you are free to use the balance of your allowance in a S&S ISA, and presumably an Innovative Finance ISA (official name for the P2P ISA) when they become available. I'm not going to tackle the 2nd part of your question, as any number of the questions tagged with international-transfer should cover you on that. There's no way to transfer an ISA into an Australian tax-free savings account, so no need to worry about anything special there. Don't forget that the FX rates change quite a bit over time, and different methods have varying fees, so moving at the wrong time could easily cost you more than the missed interest! For the first part, it depends. One thing you should seriously consider right away is switching your ISA money into one paying a better rate. Check the best-buy tables online or in a paper, as you can get a lot better than 0.1% on a transfer in, even with current depressed rates. At least that way you'll earn more interest while you decide. As for when to transfer, that's something you'll have to calculate for yourself, based on your marginal tax rate, and your view of how the FX rates will shift. If you're a 40% taxpayer, then 2% in an ISA is worth the same to you as 3.3% gross. Don't forget to consider both your UK and Australian tax rates in the year you move, as most likely you'll have to pay the higher of the two. The westpac rate looks like you might struggle to beat a decent ISA over the course of a year, were you a higher rate tax payer. Oh, and don't forget that you'll likely loose the tax-free status of your ISA once you're an Australian tax resident, so you'll need to start paying tax on interest earnt in the ISA once you're out there. "The short answer is that there is no US tax due if all you are doing is moving assets held abroad to the US. Whether you are a ""returning"" US citizen (or will continue your residence in the Philippines) is not relevant to this. The long answer is that you may be liable for a lot of other fines and taxes if you have not been doing any of several things correctly. As a US citizen, you are required to declare your worldwide income on your US income tax returns. Have you been filing US income tax returns during your time abroad? and have you been declaring the income that you have received from non-US sources each year? This includes wages, interest, dividends, capital gains, rental income from real estate, gambling income, lottery winnings,  Nobel prizes, everything. If you have been paying income tax to other countries on this income, then it is generally possible to get a deduction for this tax payment from the income that will be taxed by the US (or a credit for the tax payment against your US Federal income tax liability) depending on the existence of tax treaties or (when the US Senate refuses to approve a tax treaty) a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between the US and other countries. In some cases, foreign earned income up to a certain limit is not taxed by the US at all. Even if you have been filing US income tax returns correctly, and can thus account for the $45,000 in your savings account, or you received that money as a gift or inheritance and can account for it on that basis, have you been filing reports with the US Treasury since the year when the total value of all your foreign bank accounts and other financial assets (stocks and bonds etc but not real estate) first exceeded $10,000?  In prior years, this was a matter of filling out and submitting Form TD F 90-22.1 but more recently (since 2010?), you need to fill out and submit FinCEN Form 114. Have you been submitting the required documentation all along? Note that there are severe penalties for failure to fine FinCEN Form 114, and these penalties do not get waived by tax treaties. In summary, you might (or you might not) have several other tax or legal issues to worry about than just taxes on the transfer of your money from the Philippines to the US."