From 2007-2015 my girlfriend (Canadian then, now US citizen) and I (US citizen) lived in Japan. When we moved back to the US in March of 2015 I did my due diligence to go to the ward office to cancel my residency and pay off my taxes. She did not. We married after returning to the US in 2015 (I’m not sure if the marriage stuff is relevant here but…)
verWe returned to Japan in summer of 2022 as my wife was offered a job. Soon after getting set up we received a notice from Japan Pension that my wife owed pension payments since December 2020 – July 2022. We visited the Japan Pension office and they stated my wife still had “住民” (residency) since 2015 (the year we left). We showed our canceled visas, zairyu cards, etc.
In order to get around having to make the payments they stated we needed to show we were covered by a US pension (ie Social Security). I asked if W2s would suffice and they said no, it needed to be a “Certificate of Coverage” issued by the Social Security Administration in the US, or a 適用証明書USA/J6. I looked this up and it seemed like it was a form for a US Employer who is paying for their employee while living in Japan and exempting them from the pension payment (or something like that). It didn’t seem like something we would normally be able to get, at least not without making a trip back to the US.
Does anybody have any experience obtaining form USA/J6? If so, I’d very much like to get any details possible.
Alternatively, could we go back to our previous ward and try to fix the problem of my wife not canceling her residency, pay any past taxes, and then show that proof to Japan Pension? We have our cancelled visas and canceled zairyu cards from that time.
1 comment
In my experience at Japanese city halls over the years, the advice you receive is *entirely dependent on the person helping you that particular day*. Go back a different day, or to a different city hall, and try again. Likely you’ll come face to face with someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.