My wife (JP national) is moving with me to the US for a period of 13 months, where she will be on a student visa. She also plans to remove herself from the residency register (sorry if that’s not the right terminology; i.e. she won’t be a JP resident for that period), and she is doing this for residence tax purposes.
She owns a number of stocks and mutual funds (US and Japan based) in her Rakuten Shouken account, and believes that since her period of stay in the US is greater than 180 days, that Rakuten policies will not allow her to keep her securities (both US and Japanese) with them, and she has to either sell them or transfer them.
This makes no sense to me, but she’s looked into it and seems convinced.
It looks like Nomura is the only brokerage that can allow this transfer of US securities. However, it appears that Nomura does not accept the transfer of some of her mutual funds/stocks, both US and Japanese, if they are not already offered by Nomura.
So firstly, is it true that she cannot keep her securities as-is in her Rakuten account during this period?
Secondly, how would Rakuten find out, and what are the penalties for not doing this?
Thirdly, if it is accurate that Nomura does not accept the transfer of all her mutual funds/stocks, what are her options other than selling them?
Lastly, what is her best course of action if the above is accurate?
BTW, I did post this on JapanFinance this weekend but I guess it got buried, there were no responses.
1 comment
Not sure on the first two questions about Rakuten. But for the third, yes it is correct that not all brokerages can/will accept transfer of all mutual funds. Stocks are generally ok though. Only option is to cash those out (sell them) and purchase something else at Nomura.
I’d have her look at Interactive Brokers instead though.