Subject: IRA profit-taking issues for expats
I realize I'm getting to the point where I need to find professional legal / financial advice (a can of worms in itself - recs. on trustworthy and helpful people welcome), but thought I'd throw this out: if I sell stock in an IRA in the US, there are no consequences - just at distribution time. But how is this handled for expats? If I realize capital gain inside an IRA account, can I expect to be liable for taxes on that when a foreign tax resident?

This is particularly weird in that a couple of the institutions I hold IRAs with appear to have just done away completely with the lot information, so it's not even clear how I would determine what those notional capital gains *are*.

It strikes me that it might be on the safer side to sell everything in my IRAs before leaving the US, and repurchase to reset the cost basis later on.