Rodiy2k,
1. Tax domicile issues - First of all, why would you even consider relying upon the legal opinion as to your possible tax liability coming from a vendor attempting to sell you services? I use and highly recommend this company that will provide you with a street address in Florida:
Mail Forwarding Services at St Brendan's Isle
Second, you should be aware that CA is the second most aggressive state in coming after former residents (after VA) to collect back taxes, penalties and interest. Among the evidence CA considers when deciding whether you legally retain tax domicile in the state are: owning property in the state, have a driver's license, using the services of professionals in the state,
having friends in the state and more, any of which can indicate an intent to return to the state at some time in the future thereby preserving CA as your current tax domicile. It goes without saying that legal concepts like tax domicile don't have anything to do with common sense notions of where you might be a resident. You need to look up all of the regulations regarding tax domicile in CA and make sure that you don't run afoul of any of them. You can forget voting for one thing. Whether the state's enforcement mechanism is efficient enough to catch you is one thing, but my goal would be and was to avoid any unnecessary risk, since the stakes are so high.
2. HSBC and bank transfers - Before you expat it seems like banking could be a big issue and it is appealing to think that HSBC Premier will be the most convenient solution, even if not the cheapest. It wasn't true for us and I doubt it will be true for you. We opened a Premier account in the US believing that we could open an account in Bangkok before we arrived. It might technically have been possible, but we were never able to get the BKK branch to open an account for us without an address in Thailand. After trying for a while we gave up in frustration. Add to that the fact that every service that HSBC offered was more expensive than the equivalent from a competitor, and the rationale for going with them evaporates in my opinion. When I sold a mutual fund position in my HSBC brokerage the commission was $125 vs $2 if I had sold it from my Vanguard account.
We did get an account at HSBC BKK after we arrived. It took more than a week versus opening an account the same day at Bangkok Bank. Transfers from a US bank took 2 days to HSBC BKK and 2 days to Bangkok Bank. Bangkok bank charges less than other Thai banks to receive a transfer, but it is not free. However, I think their charges compare favorably to the opportunity cost of parking the $100k at HSBC Premier.
The key consideration is to see if you can find a local bank that has a US branch and therefore an ABA number, like Bangkok Bank. In that case you can do ACH transfers from your US bank that should be free on the US end, although you may well have to pay something to the receiving bank, as we do. If that is not available pick a local bank that supports online billpay and that other expats use.
3. Credit cards - Just get credit cards before you leave from all of these places: Pentagon Federal, Capital One and, possibly, Schwab. (I don't have the Schwab card myself.) Keep the Amex cards for US use and throw away the major bank credit cards. Penfed and CapOne have cards that have no foreign exchange fees. Some of their cards have rebates; others have no late fees. All have no annual fees. There is no reason to get a local card and a lot of reasons not to. Although I don't follow the card situation in Malaysia, I'll bet it's like Thailand, i.e. no fraud protection and interest rates of 25%. End of story right there as far as I am concerned. Some expats in Thailand have to maintain a large deposit, more than their credit limit, to get a credit card from a Thai bank at all. Paying to borrow your own money back? Not for me, thank you. But the unlimited fraud liability alone would be enough to discourage me even if there were no other disadvantage. We keep the Penfed Visa, CapOne Mastercard and two Amex cards. We use each card every month and, of course, pay on time in full always. Consumers in SE Asia, or Asia generally, have few rights. US consumer protections are the best. However, Citibank and probably BofA will charge you 3% foreign exchange fee if you use the card abroad, even for a transaction in USD. The length of you relationship counts for zero, really. My Penfed Promise Visa charges 9.99% interest on purchases. I'll bet Citi and BofA charge more than that.
4. Roth conversion - I am doing Roth conversions from retirement at age 61 until age 70, but not all at once. I will use the capacity up to the top of my marginal bracket each year. That will enable me to convert as much as I need before the RMDs and SS bump up my bracket at age 70.
I assume you are delaying SS until age 70 also. Is that right?
We retired to Thailand a little less than two years ago.
The Malaysia My Second Home offers the advantage of the 10 year visa, but the requirement to maintain the bank balance is more stringent than Thailand, which requires a minimum balance only for the 60 days before visa renewal. From what I understand Malaysia is less corrupt among the police and the courts than Thailand, but the cost of living may be a little higher. People seem to like KL, although it is said to have more crime than BKK. Visa renewals are annual in Thailand and not guaranteed, although no one seems to have trouble getting them. Thailand does have a permanent residence status that I will seek eventually. Many expats in Thailand envy the MMSH program since participants can buy property, but I am not one of them.
For our long-range planning before retirement I found the Esplanner software to be indispensable. I recommend it.
www.esplanner.com
Will you be in KL?