Welcome to the forum.
While we all know what we ourselves hold, it can be hard or impossible to know what your parents hold. Yet in the context of estate taxes, what they hold matters far more to you than what you hold.
There is some good advice upthread already. To the extent that your mother contributed to the joint account, you should be able to get that removed from US estate tax liability; of course, it's possible this is small or even nothing, but worth a look. And you should be able to set off one country's estate/inheritance tax against another's, so that you are not double-taxed, but "only" end up paying the higher of the two countries' rates. Also, splitting to stay below £60k at any single broker technically does not avoid US estate tax (it is 'structuring'); US estate tax is liable on the total of US situs assets held, no matter where or how. (Although realistically, many non-US brokers will not know this or may not enforce it -- the problem here is that IB is a US broker.)
If you have no objection, I would like to add a link to this post to our wiki. The wiki has a lot of cautionary text about confiscatory US estate taxes, but a real-world cautionary tale of just how bad the reality is "on the ground" -- which is what this is -- would help to fully bring home its full effects.
Again then, sorry for the mess you have been handed. Please come back and keep the thread updated when useful and convenient. All of the details you can give will help others, either to navigate the process, or hopefully to simply avoid it in the first place.
I am so sorry to see you in this situation. It is something we have been warning about for years, so that your post is one I had hoped never to read. Unfortunately though, here it is. :-(I am the guy behind this post on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/BEFire/comment ... n_with_us/ and I am in the middle of the situation you're talking about.
TLDR: my father passed early in 2023 with 300k USD+ invested in US assets with Lynx/IB, IB blocked everything, we filed a 706NA and are now struggling with the IRS.
While we all know what we ourselves hold, it can be hard or impossible to know what your parents hold. Yet in the context of estate taxes, what they hold matters far more to you than what you hold.
There is some good advice upthread already. To the extent that your mother contributed to the joint account, you should be able to get that removed from US estate tax liability; of course, it's possible this is small or even nothing, but worth a look. And you should be able to set off one country's estate/inheritance tax against another's, so that you are not double-taxed, but "only" end up paying the higher of the two countries' rates. Also, splitting to stay below £60k at any single broker technically does not avoid US estate tax (it is 'structuring'); US estate tax is liable on the total of US situs assets held, no matter where or how. (Although realistically, many non-US brokers will not know this or may not enforce it -- the problem here is that IB is a US broker.)
If you have no objection, I would like to add a link to this post to our wiki. The wiki has a lot of cautionary text about confiscatory US estate taxes, but a real-world cautionary tale of just how bad the reality is "on the ground" -- which is what this is -- would help to fully bring home its full effects.
Again then, sorry for the mess you have been handed. Please come back and keep the thread updated when useful and convenient. All of the details you can give will help others, either to navigate the process, or hopefully to simply avoid it in the first place.
Statistics: Posted by TedSwippet — Mon Jul 01, 2024 3:08 am