Hi everyone,
First sorry for my poor english, it’s not my first language.
Today a friend of mine had his bank account seized and he lost all of his savings… He always paid his health insurance and resident tax but not his pension. Althought we don’t have a confirmation of why this happened to him, one my japanese friends do thinks the reason is because he never paid the pension those past 5 years.
I’ve been in japan for 6.5 years (79 months), I’ve also never paid my pension, I thought it wasn’t an obligation. I have an entertainment visa (modeling, basic white girl in japan) and I always thought I would stay here on short term and go back to my country, so I’ve never think to deeply of my situation and future. I’ve always paid my health insurance and residence tax i thought everything was fine. My model agency never told me about the pension and I’ve probably received one letter for the pension my first year when i was still a student nothing since. I don’t blame anyone I know it’s completely my fault, I’m obviously super naive…
But the thing is after what happened to my friend I finally made proper researches, what i should have done way sooner… I know I can’t change the past, but I want to fix my mistakes, pay my debts because yes… At the point after almost 7 years, from what I understand I will owe a lot of money…
I just don’t know where to start and what to do, my incomes with modelling are not that great, during covid those past few years my incomes were even lower.
I feel like i completely mess up my life (again i’m the only one to blame here). I just want to find here maybe some people with similar experiences, any advices if I should go to consultant or just go to my ward office to receive my sentence. I’m really sorry if my message isn’t clear if my post doesn’t belong here. I’m so lost.
6 comments
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They used to not check that … I got a PR visa and never paid into it… Need to verify that’s what happened to your friend before you worry about it..
You will only be allowed/required to backpay 2 years’ worth.
If you leave Japan permanently you can claim a refund of up to 5 years.
If your income is low you may be able to pay a reduced rate or not pay at all (but still receive pension credits).
Good luck!
If you get your bank account seized, it usually means you were on the pension radar for a while but you ignored a lot of notices and letters etc. Now they have had enough.
That’s probably what happened to your friend. Good on you for trying to get things right. You’ll only need to pay 2 years, as mentioned before.
Your friend signed up to pension and then didn’t pay? That’s the mistake.
They can only reclaim up to 2 years of unpaid pension. I didn’t pay pension for years, but I finally had to sign up when I changed jobs and soon after the pension office sent me those letters asking me to pay and come into the pension office.
So I would just sporadically visit city hall, ask to apply for exemption, this would take a couple of months, , of course they would reject me, but the point is to just waste time. Then they would send the letters again asking me to come in and pay, so I would ignore again and again and after a few months go in and ask for a payment plan (to send to my apartment), again this would waste months to send, and just keep repeating.
Just remember, each month you waste is less you have to pay, since they can only backcharge you two years(and I was paying since I joined pension).
Keep wasting their time until those unpaid months have left your 2 year history.
Don’t keep your money in the bank, you’ll get no interest on it anyway.
They can only ask for 2 years back. When they start to send the letters, try to delay it, every month delayed is one month pension payment saved. As long as you’ll not getting any letters you are pretty safe.