visacats

You're welcome, if it turns out I'm wrong in some obvious way then please don't tell me, hah. Yeah, FBAR and form 8938 (which you may also need to file if your foreign assets are above a certain threshold).

Ugh, the horror. I find it bizarre that accountants are stating that Kiwisaver does not meet the IRS requirements to be filed as a pension fund, and treating the gains as capital gains income. I get that from the original definition of a pension fund it may appear that Kiwisaver is not included, and/or may be considered a trust, but regardless the NZ-US tax treaty and 2008 protocol explicitly call out Kiwisaver as being considered a pension fund. And the instructions for the 3520 and 8621 forms (if people have been talking to you about/making you file those) explicitly exempt pensions, so to me the logic is clear that Kiwisaver (1) is a pension fund and (2) isn't subject to filing those forms. Maybe I'm missing something fundamental, but it seems pretty cut and dry. Check out the links in my earlier posts for the tax treaty stuff, and also worth looking up the instructions for 3520 and 8621 if people have been talking to you about those. It does seem like there are some disadvantages to keeping Kiwisaver in that Kiwisaver is taxed on gains by the NZ govt each year, and will also be subject to US tax on withdrawal at retirement (so unavoidable double taxation on the gain), but then again it seems NZ doesn't recognize Roth's tax-free status either so I guess it nets off depending on where you end up retiring.

Sorry, I didn't see this - not really active on the forums. I filed as I originally stated for the 2023 and 2024 tax years - I had to file on paper for various reasons, so my 2023 return was slow to process and I don't think my 2024 return (filed April 2025) has yet been fully processed. However, it appears that my 2023 return at least was accepted with no issues. Generally speaking, I find it hard to believe that the IRS wants to be processing 3520 and 8621 forms for established NZ Kiwisaver accounts.

Hi, I have an old Kiwisaver account which is not currently receiving any contributions. I am looking to emigrate to the US later this year with a green card. It looks like the filing of this under US taxes could be complicated - does anyone here have previous experience of filing US taxes with an open Kiwisaver? How did you do it? Obviously the other option is to close it, with the forfeiture of previous government contributions (and anyway I may as yet end up back in NZ one day).