Imagine a Singapore investor who dies holding S$1.5 million of US stocks in a brokerage account.
Their family expects to inherit S$1.5 million.
The IRS can take
more than S$500,000 of it first.
Singapore abolished estate duty in 2008, so most of us assume death is tax-free.
On the Singapore side, it is.
The trap is on the US side — and it lands squarely on the assets most of us hold the most of, US stocks and US-listed ETFs.
Here’s what I want to discuss today:
- How does US estate tax actually work for a Singaporean, and what would it really cost?
- Does holding through IBKR, Tiger or moomoo protect me?
- What are the fixes, ranked by how practical they actually are?
- And what do you do if you pick single stocks like Nvidia, where there’s no easy wrapper?
Start with the exemption — and how small it is
A US citizen can die with
US$15 million in assets before the estate tax bites....
