Two weeks ago I wrote about a client who moved roughly $1 million out of the US, most of it into a Swiss private bank.
Near the end of that piece, I dropped one line and kept going:
“And even money that has to stay in US custody, like an IRA, has options.”
Several of you asked me what those options are.
So here is one of the five.
And the answer starts with a problem:
Your IRA cannot leave the country.
By law it sits with a US custodian, and if you pull the money out to move it yourself, the IRS treats that as a withdrawal.
Income tax on the full amount (for a traditional IRA), plus a 10% penalty if you're under 59½.
The “100% Swiss” setup my client used for her brokerage account is off the table for IRA money.
There is a workaround.
It’s called a self-directed IRA
And if you search the term, half the first page of results is custodians who earn a fee when you open one.
My view is this:
It’s the right answer for a small group of people.
It’s the wrong answer for almost everyone reading this.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Why your IRA is stuck in the US, and what “self-directed” actually changes
The ownership chain that gets IRA money into a Swiss account (legally, fully reported)
What it costs, what can blow it up, and the number below which you should walk away
First, what the word actually means.