I am planning to leave Japan and return to Canada either sometime in December this year or early next year. I have already quit my job and I plan to stay here until my partner gets his Canadian PR approved so that we can return together, but this is not set and I am flexible about going back a bit earlier on my own.
I went to the kuyakusho the other day to join the national health insurance and pension plan. They told me that my monthly health insurance would be around 81,000JPY, and that’s already discounted because my partner and I are in the same household registry and my partner doesn’t have any declared income. If we were to separate our 世帯 the lady told me that my monthly health insurance would be even higher…
So I am now thinking just to submit my moving-out notification right away so that I wouldn’t have to pay for my health insurance for the next few months (if I stay here until November that’s 243,000JPY worth of health insurance) and my municipal tax next year. I will be staying here in Japan for maybe 2 more months as a visitor. Does this makes sense? Any cons that I should be aware of besides obviously not eligible for health insurance and having to pay in full when I possibly visit the doctors?*P.S. I thought the HelloWork unemployment allowance would cover it but no because they don’t start paying you until 2 months after your last employment date…*
In addition, would anybody advise taking out the employee’s pension lump sum withdrawal now? I am not sure if I will return to Japan in the future. I for sure will not work here again, but since I will be married to my Japanese partner in the future, I might come back once in while just to visit for a few months. We spoke with the staff at kuyakusho and he told us that the pension payment rate is low right now and advised me to not withdraw it. I am not sure how accurate my calculations are, but according to the formula I found online, my payout would be around 1.7M.
2 comments
>December this year or early next year.
You’re gonna wanna cease residency and leave before December 31st 2023. That way you can avoid 2023 resident tax (billed June 2024 to May 2025).
This 2023 resident tax will be ~10% of your taxable income (total income minus tax deductibles).
So by leaving on or after January 1st 2024 you’d have to pay:
– what remains of your 2022 resident tax (billed June 2023 to May 2024) should you not have paid it all off yet
– the whole 2023 bill. You’d have to appoint a resident tax representative for this as the bill wouldn’t be ready until June 2024. Some municipalities will post the bill overseas, so no need for a resident tax representative. But not all offer that.
But if you leave before January 1st 2024 then you just have to pay what remains of your 2022 resident tax (unless you’ve paid it all already)
I moved away from Japan earlier this year in January, and here is a piece of advice you might not have consiered:
– If you stay until December this year, you’ll be free from paying “juuminzei” (residential tax) next year.
– However, if you stay until January next year, even 1 day, you will HAVE to pay a full year’s worth of juuminzei. So you will get a bill in June 2024 for that (quite a shock, I tell you).
If you don’t pay it, you can be in real trouble. A friend of mine who didn’t pay it didn’t get her pension lump sump back .
Why is the system like this?
Because juuminzei is paid retrospectively (the year after) but if you move my Dec 31 you are exempt from paying the final year.
Hope this will save you some headaches next year, at least.