I’m an American living in Japan on a work visa. I’m employed full time at a Japanese company. I file taxes in the US but I don’t make enough to pay anything. As of right now, I am thinking I will be staying in Japan long term. I have a Japanese partner of 3.5 years, but unfortunately we can’t get married because we’re LGBT. So I remain on a work visa for the time being.
Lately I’ve been concerned about retirement. As an American, it seems difficult if not impossible to build wealth or invest in retirement here in Japan, because taxes are so much stricter for us compared to other foreigners. For example, (from my understanding) no iDeco and being advised not to invest in the Japanese stock market for anything except for individual stocks.
However, without a U.S. income, my understanding is that I also wouldn’t be able to have any sort of US based IRA or other private retirement fund in back home either.
So my question is, am I even allowed to have a U.S. income while simultaneously having a Japanese income and living in Japan? Is it allowed to start an online side hustle using my American address to get some sort of US income and start an IRA? For example, I have a blog about Japanese learning that gets decent traffic. Am I allowed to monetize this in some way or pursue other paid content creation opportunities? How about a Patreon? Things like this.
If that is allowed, how would taxes look for that? I assume I’d need to declare foreign income in Japan too? Or maybe not if I never brought it into Japan?
Or is my only option for retirement wealth building to invest in the US stock market using a regular non tax advantaged brokerage account?
Sorry if this isn’t the correct place to post this. I’m just starting to learn about finance and wealth building in general, and I’m feeling so overwhelmed because it seems like none of the regular rules apply to an American in Japan.
by Time-Trust-6052