On the other hand, if you do have an accountant by your side, you potentially expose yourself to some of the most powerful labor arbitrage on the planet as a tech worker. Making $100k remotely from the US might sound like a bad deal until you live in a country where the average wage is $20,000. Like all things US tax wise, you are disproportionately rewarded for being clever and reading a lot.
One big difference is that the clock only start ticking after you get green card, whereas with Germany any residence year counts. Oh, and citizens of course aren't affected - since US continues to tax them wherever, but Germany like almost all other countries practices residence-based taxation.
This means lots of additional reporting work plus 49€ per ETF yearly for tax preparers.
US really hates expats.
https://accountinginsights.org/how-does-pfic-taxation-work-f...
I live in Europe and contemplated writing a tool to analyze ETF holdings and buy the stocks individually with the IBKR API, but it's an expensive and error-prone approach.
I can't believe how badly the US screws their expats, and nothing is done about this, it only gets worse over the years.
The reporting requirements for expats are insane: all bank/brokerage/whatever accounts with max levels during the year, FATCA and FBAR forms, and the cherry on top: Form 8858 ("Foreign Disregarded Entities", whatever that is) which is needed for your self-employment and for each of your rental properties. If you think this is easy, look it up — https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8858
It's pretty much impossible to file your taxes yourself, you will never get it right. You have to pay specialized accountants, some of which will charge you >$1500 to prepare a yearly return with self-employment and rental.
Then come the actual taxes to pay, which are the least of all problems.
Expats are treated this way because they have no lobbying power.