Hi everyone. Quick background: I'm an American living in Germany. My growing mustache muscles took me here for many reasons, including an inexpensive masters program, before I even found this website. After reading through almost every article (skipped the ones about buyings cars/houses in the US, for various reasons), I'm ready to start growing my 'stache with my recent steady, decent paying job.
Unfortunately, I need more information on my situation. I've tried searching the here forums (didn't find anything but I acknowledge maybe I didn't think of all the right search terms) and looking at the toytown (german expatriate website) forum/wiki (unfortunately two pages with relevant sounding titles appear empty:
https://www.toytowngermany.com/wiki/Investing_in_Germany_as_an_American and
https://www.toytowngermany.com/wiki/Double_Taxation_for_US_citizens_who_are_in_Germany), and I haven't found much clarity through google either. The topic I would like to know more about is how an American living and working exclusively in Germany would deal with taxes between the two countries with regards to investing and student loans.
German savings accounts and CDs just don't seem very appealing to me. As such, I am interested in investing, either in Germany or the US. Before I do anything, I would really like to know the consequences, pros, and cons to whatever I do. From my research on Google, I know I do not have to file income taxes in the US for my income in germany as long as I do not make over $100k here. That won't be happening for a while. However, I am interested to know how the situation with income taxes in both countries would be with paying back US student loans and capital gains/losses from investing.
For example, I am curious about long-term and short-term capital gains taxes. I have some US savings bonds (series EE) that will reach maturity at the end of this year. I know that these would be long-term capital gains in the US, but how does that affect my German income taxes? As I live in Germany, do I report them in Germany or the US as income tax. Or do I do both? What about if I invest in stocks or ETFs in the US? Where do I report the gains as income? Can I offset gains with losses? What about my sizeable student loans? What if I start investing in German stocks and ETFs?
Is there a resource on this? Maybe a blog/wiki someone has made with experience on this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
