Tax Question ... IRA and sale of house in US

Hello my trusted fellows on this forum... Happy New Year

Long story, sorry in advance. I have recently become a widow (as some of you may recall) it has been a heck of a year but now, I'm getting ducks in a row regarding several sources of income. As my wife was ill for 6 months she was unable to work (Sept 2018 to Feb 28, 2019) . I was needed at home to help care for her, so I resigned from my work in January. (knowing I was going to retire soon anyway). I turned 66 in April.

As we have struggled to make ends meet here in the UK, we had no savings to speak of so, we borrowed from a cousin, nearly £30,000 just to get through what was to be her last days battling lung cancer. My wife had an IRA in the States from living and working there for over 25 years. I had already cashed in my (meager) IRA savings to finance our move over to the UK in 2011.

Now, to be fair, had we been living in the USA, we would probably be bankrupt after chemo treatments and a hip replacement surgery. Anyway, she succumbed to the cancer after 5 months of being diagnosed. By May (?) of this year, I was able to cash out her IRA which was nearly $XX,000. That money is almost gone now due to transfer fees, exchange rates, and living expenses for myself and my teenage daughter.

I have paid back the cousin £20,000 and have asked for a little more time to see where the value of the pound ends up / down. The exchange rate was pretty good in October and I had some decent transfers, but I was told to wait until October 31st when Brexit came to pass as it might get better! Now, the GBP has bounced back as you all know.

Meanwhile, I have sold our house in Florida and made a profit of $XXX,000 of which I have invested a large amount into a mutual fund via Wells Fargo.

I have sorted out my US pension and am also receiving a good portion of my wife's Social Security pension. (this was handled very awkwardly by the FBU in London - but eventually solved / sorted after 6 months of persevering)

Questions:
How do I reconcile this income with the IRS? And with HMRC?
Is there an "international tax consultant" here on the forum by any chance??
I'm willing to pay for consultation. It is a complicated matter, of that I'm sure.
Any clues would be most appreciated...

Kindest regards,
Peter

Hello my trusted fellows on this forum... Happy New Year

Long story, sorry in advance. I have recently become a widow (as some of you may recall) it has been a heck of a year but now, I'm getting ducks in a row regarding several sources of income. As my wife was ill for 6 months she was unable to work (Sept 2018 to Feb 28, 2019) . I was needed at home to help care for her, so I resigned from my work in January. (knowing I was going to retire soon anyway). I turned 66 in April.

As we have struggled to make ends meet here in the UK, we had no savings to speak of so, we borrowed from a cousin, nearly £30,000 just to get through what was to be her last days battling lung cancer. My wife had an IRA in the States from living and working there for over 25 years. I had already cashed in my (meager) IRA savings to finance our move over to the UK in 2011.

Now, to be fair, had we been living in the USA, we would probably be bankrupt after chemo treatments and a hip replacement surgery. Anyway, she succumbed to the cancer after 5 months of being diagnosed. By May (?) of this year, I was able to cash out her IRA which was nearly $XX,000. That money is almost gone now due to transfer fees, exchange rates, and living expenses for myself and my teenage daughter.

I have paid back the cousin £20,000 and have asked for a little more time to see where the value of the pound ends up / down. The exchange rate was pretty good in October and I had some decent transfers, but I was told to wait until October 31st when Brexit came to pass as it might get better! Now, the GBP has bounced back as you all know.

Meanwhile, I have sold our house in Florida and made a profit of $XXX,000 of which I have invested a large amount into a mutual fund via Wells Fargo.

I have sorted out my US pension and am also receiving a good portion of my wife's Social Security pension. (this was handled very awkwardly by the FBU in London - but eventually solved / sorted after 6 months of persevering)

Questions:
How do I reconcile this income with the IRS? And with HMRC?
Is there an "international tax consultant" here on the forum by any chance??
I'm willing to pay for consultation. It is a complicated matter, of that I'm sure.
Any clues would be most appreciated...

Kindest regards,
Peter

I will pm you. 

I can’t help you with any tax advice but I would suggest that any mutual funds you invest in the USA should be in HMRC’s list of reporting funds so that they get the preferred tax treatment for qualified dividends and capital gains. Before we moved back I exchanged our mutual funds to ETFs listed below. (There are thousands to choose from). One example was that we had a lot of shares in a total stock market mutual fund that had an exact equivalent ETF which we exchanged the shares into with no tax implications for the exchange.


https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offshore-funds-list-of-reporting-funds

I can’t help you with any tax advice but I would suggest that any mutual funds you invest in the USA should be in HMRC’s list of reporting funds so that they get the preferred tax treatment for qualified dividends and capital gains. Before we moved back I exchanged our mutual funds to ETFs listed below. (There are thousands to choose from). One example was that we had a lot of shares in a total stock market mutual fund that had an exact equivalent ETF which we exchanged the shares into with no tax implications for the exchange.


https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offshore-funds-list-of-reporting-funds

Thanks very much! I will look into that
cheers!