US 401(k) pension

Britunculus

My experience muight be helpful: I have a 401(k) with Fidelity and have started taking periodic withdrawals using the W8-BEN route. That is working well, but I stupidly took out a small amount on top of the periodic withdrawal and Fideilty treated that as if it were a lump sum, so promptly withheld 30% tax on the smaller amount.  It did not affect a subsequent periodic withdrawal, however, so it is possible to mix these things up.

ginger_jon

Britunculus said:

My experience muight be helpful: I have a 401(k) with Fidelity and have started taking periodic withdrawals using the W8-BEN route. That is working well, but I stupidly took out a small amount on top of the periodic withdrawal and Fideilty treated that as if it were a lump sum, so promptly withheld 30% tax on the smaller amount.  It did not affect a subsequent periodic withdrawal, however, so it is possible to mix these things up.

Thanks. I've also used the W8-BEN with TIAA-CREF but they messed up a few time in this first year and deducted tax on some payments, so I had to file a US tax return to reclaim it, which was a lot of effort for a relatively small amount. We'll see how that works out.