"When naming a nonresident alien as a retirement plan beneficiary, make sure to include more information than the typical name, relationship, and date of birth. The issue here is that your human resources department must contact and verify your beneficiary ... The money that accumulated in a 401(k) is pretax, so before it goes abroad, Uncle Sam takes his cut. This means that on top of submitting a death certificate, your [beneficiary] will have to request a U.S. tax identification number and pay taxes as a nonresident alien."  MORE >>