I asked the customer service and they mention its total liquidation value (means holdings + cash).

I never used passport throughout my registration process, only National IC + Bank/Credit Card Statement (HSBC MY).

Didn't want to deal with expiry issues in the future (had this problem with FSM HK)

Yes not a problem, I've opened my account for more than half a year but still not funded it. Just only going to get it funded this week

There's no capital gains tax.
30% is withholding tax on dividends in the case of US stocks.

If company give out $1 dividend, you only receive $0.70.
You don't have to pay anything as IBKR is responsible to remit the tax to IRS.
I.e. IBKR already deduct from your dividend before paying to your account. The money is yours.

TradeStation's support is a mess/slow

I sent email and asked something about fees, but managed to find my answer from lowyat/reddit hence went ahead with account opening. Halfway thru my application process they sent me some other email asking if I needed help with my application, and few days later, answering my 1st support ticket. Confused me like heck

What I usually do is just proactively login into IBKR portal to check on application status. It'll tell you in the dashboard if any document requires re-submission (e.g. my TNB bill got rejected, suspect because it's Bahasa and address spelt slightly different from my english equivalent address)

At the start of application, you'll already get IBKR login credentials (or rather, you're the one that set the login credentials)

At the end of application, upon approval, you will get email from TSG on TSG-Desktop login credentials.

To login to IBKR Web/Desktop/Mobile: use IBKR credentials
To login to TSG-Desktop: use TSG credentials. You must have IBKR-Desktop installed and logged in first (via IBKR credentials) to enable TSG-Desktop feature.

Most of us just use IBKR Web/Mobile as it's the simplest and most user friendly. Some use TSG/IBKR desktop app for sophisticated features.

Your account might still be "WIP"

Even after approval from most of us (myself included) it takes additional 2 days for God-knows-why for the account to be fully functional (and was  the most confusing 2 days period)

Yeap! Just be patient for abit more ! I kept checking last time too and could log in but without trading permission

oh, it seems the min for account opening is now USD2.5k instead of 1k.

Non-professional is the right one.

https://www1.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=718

If the account is approved you should be able to see market data and trade. Otherwise you need to fund your account.

Not sure about why the loading is slow. IBKR has experienced some issues in yesterday and this afternoon (web portal).

You can try the desktop tradestation or the mobile app to check if they are ok.

The aim is to fund your account as soon as possible. You should already have your target stock/ETF etc. to buy before you open your account, so just go ahead and buy once the money enters.

Unless large in amount, money left in the cash account has no interest.

Someone texted me that TSG updated the minimum balance to 2.5k USD. (Though website doesn't show so, their Customer Service e-mail replied so)

Anyways I think as long as we hold a position in stocks, they wont levy any 1 USD inactivity fee haha