Posted on Apr 19, 2015 in Articles, Oversea Property Investment by Gerald Tay
15th April and the year is 2015.
The dreaded time of the year for taxpayers – Deadline to file income taxes!
Filing our local taxes is easy. What’s not easy is filing foreign taxes as a new foreign investor.
This is the second year I filed my USA personal tax returns and yet I still face uphill struggles with it. We have accountants to help file corporate taxes for our property investment companies but personal income taxes can be frustrating for new foreign investors.
Asking for advice from my American partners does not help much either. Understandingly, how a local file his personal tax returns will be different from a foreigner/non-resident. There will be different set of forms to use and fill, alien abbreviations to contend with and a foreign tax language to grasp and understand. Above all, where to file and how to file just add on to the already mind-blogging process.
It’s also a struggle faced by some of my fellow Singaporean co-partners. It’s a struggle, yes. But it’s a GOOD struggle.
Are we complaining? Do we believe investing in other countries will be any different? Or do we naively believe their tax system will be any easier? Or do we for a single thought foolishly believe we can have our overseas properties on “auto-pilot’ throughout?
Many gullible investors lost money investing in “cheap” overseas properties because of sweet promises coated with distorted facts. These properties have a huge demand because they appeal to some people who cannot afford local properties. Given the fast pace of life today, investors in general do not want to wrack their brains or get their hands dirty while investing in foreign countries. They tend to think owning a cheap overseas property to tell the world “I also own an overseas investment” is sexy. How naive!
Filing a tax return is only a day or two of hard work. We enjoyed the remaining 354/5 days sitting back receiving good rental income while seeing our properties appreciate in value. We have experienced overseas partners doing a great job looking after the management of our properties since they have vested interests in them.
This trade-off of having to sweat and file our own income taxes seems a lot more rewarding!
Is there any reason to complain?
Absolutely NOT!
You know, sometimes I have to remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing. When I think on it, I think about the times in my life when I had little hope and living through each day was a struggle. I then think about how, even now at a time when I have plenty of things to be positive and grateful for in my life, I still find things to grumble and complain.
And I realize that this is just life and to stay a step ahead of it, one must be prepared. Then, finally, I think about the fact that there is no paradise, or utopia, or perfect place we can ever get to. Life will never be perfect, and no matter how good it gets, it won’t stay that way forever.
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
―Beverly Sills
Humans are strange creatures. We live our entire lives making plans for things we think we want while taking action we think will get us there and then get upset if we are detoured from what we thought was supposed to happen.
Are we clairvoyant?
What makes us think that we have any idea about what will happen in the future?
Why are we so arrogant? What is our obsession with avoiding failure? Why do we expect ourselves—and others—to be perfect? Why do we care so much what others think? Why do we shape our appearances, beliefs, and the things we do on a daily basis to satisfy the fickle opinions of other people?
As plenty of smart people have said, “No plan of battle ever survives contact with the enemy” or as John Lennon is frequently attributed as saying “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
No matter what history has shown us, we still audaciously believe we can set a plan for the future while expecting it to come to fruition as is. Then, when the future doesn’t live up to our expectations, we kick and scream, and usually, give up. We are basically trying to predict the future. Obviously, that’s dumb for many reasons.
Maybe we need a different approach?
Most people are not fond of approaching life as an experiment. This makes sense because scientific testing takes work—and humans don’t like to do work… in case you forgot. Testing requires you to try more than once. It could take a couple tries or a hundred (or a thousand in the case of the incandescent lightbulb). We want to do it once and get it right because we are either lazy or arrogant, sometimes both.
While doing my overseas tax returns online, it took me a number of tries to get it right. Errors and omissions are common. You start from A – Z, made a mistake, goes back to A and figure what’s missing from B – Z. Sort of fumbling in a dark room looking for a needle.
Start thinking like a scientist.
A testing framework can be used for the largest and smallest instances of your life. What you don’t realize is, you’ve been doing scientific experimentation your entire life.
Think about it…
How did you figure out what your favourite drink is? You tried a few options and made a decision. And that was a successful executed scientific experiment. Just because the drinks weren’t lined up in a lab in random beakers does not mean that it was any less “scientific.” You’ve been applying scientific testing to things your entire life—cuisine, food, fashion, books, art, music, people, professions, jobs, etc.
Everything in your life has been a test so far, and as far as personal preference goes, we are all pretty good at figuring out what we like and don’t like. But when it comes to things like money, success, purpose, and happiness, we get stuck. We expect to get it right the first time. Choose the right career and be happy. Find the right partner and be happy. Find the right friends and be happy. Find the right hobbies and be happy. Buy the right house and be happy. Find the right investment and be happy.
And so on…
Honestly, when are we ever right the first time on anything? Come on. Not to mention the fact that our tastes and preferences are constantly changing and evolving.
Why do we think that we are supposed to choose perfectly the first time around when making the most important choices of our lives?! And yet, this is exactly what we, society, friends and family expect us to do.
It’s asinine.
It might take you trying 10 careers to find the one you love. It might take the same number of partners to find the one you want to marry—and then it could take a couple marriages to find the right marriage (hopefully not that many). It might take living in a few houses and a few locations to figure out where you want to live. And so on.
The thing about this expectation-based behaviour is it’s easy to fix. Start approaching these choices scientifically: Test until you find your answers.
You have to TEST life!
I suffered, I learned, I changed:
- I accepted the problems and improved my current circumstances instead of complaining
- I learnt a lot more about filing my USA taxes versus last year (gained new knowledge)
- Life NEVER goes in a straight line
- Constant learning and experimenting is how we improve and succeed
- NEVER fear learning new things
Ultimately, if you pursue the things you want to spend your time doing, the rest tends to figure itself out. This should be obvious considering the fact that we are all going to die one day and we will never get a chance to repeat the time we spend. Yet still—because it’s easier—most people take the easy route and settle for their first, or easiest, decision. That is, in my opinion, the reason there are so many people stuck in crappy relationships, jobs, and situations.
Never settle for the first in anything. Test then iterate. Life will lead you to exactly where you need to be if you approach it scientifically with a curious and open mind!
Source: http://www.crei-academy.com/life-never-goes-in-a-straight-line/
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