Hi, I’ll see if I can keep this simple but I need some pointers of what to keep in mind. Here’s some context to my situation. You can skip to the end for my questions:
1. I am a dual citizen, US and Japan. I was born and raised in Japan but currently living in the US. (let’s avoid talking about this, every time i post about this there seems to be a whole discussion about how you cant’t have dual citizenship but this isn’t what this post is about)
2. My father passed away last year, spent 4 months dealing with that from august 2022 to february 2023. It was a kodokushi with some damages to the property, so i’ve spent some time renovating the apartment.
3. I inherited money and the property which i currently manage through my real estate agent. I have a bank account that i left open from when i was in Japan (shinsei). I use this bank account to make any payments related to my property like property taxes and management fees.
4. My property currently has a tenant, which means i’m making a small income in Japan. Approximately 60000 yen/month. This started around august 2023. Still haven’t paid any income taxes related to this. I am not making any other income in japan besides this.
5. All income made stays in my bank in japan for now.
6. I moved back to the US with plans to go back to Japan after renovations on my apartment was complete. I went back to the US in February 2023 and I am still here. I plan to go to Japan in April of this year which is next month. I want to conclude my business in Japan in this next trip.
What i’m trying to accomplish:
1. I want to cancel my juminhyo, i’m paying for national healthcare each month with it.
2. By cancelling my juminhyo, this will mean i will need to close my bank account. Which means that i need to remit the amounts i have to my US bank.
3. I am not ready to sell my apartment, it still has the stigma from the kodokushi and the value of the property is low. I have a tenant in there now and my hope is the value of my apartment will grow after my first tenant leaves. Having this property is small extra income and overhead cost is low. Plan to sell in a few years or maybe keep it as a vacation home.
Finally these are my questions:
1. I want to manage the property without my japanese bank. I don’t plan to live in Japan so having a juminhyo isn’t ideal. I’m thinking that if all payments are done through furikomi, i can use my Wise account to manage my money. Anybody have any better ideas?
2. Now that i have income from my rental property, how do i pay taxes on that? Can I manage that without my japanese bank?
3. When i inherited the money, i don’t think i paid any inheritance taxes. Was i supposed to? How does inheriting money work in Japan? I have about 1,700,000 yen that inherited.
4. When sending all of the money i inherited to my US bank, does this get taxed? Or double taxed? I heard that if you file for some form, the US doesn’t tax any income made in japan. Is this true?
5. If i remit the money i have in my bank back home, id probably do this within the last week before i head back to japan after all of my businesses are taken care of. Can i do that around the time i close my bank account? Or should i expect there to be some delay that would prevent me from closing my account? Would it be better to transfer the money to my Wise account and keep it there until I’m ready to send it to my US bank?
6. I want to conclude my business in Japan, are there any things i should be aware of besides the items i listed above?
Sorry for the big post, i’m still new to this and everything happened suddenly, i feel a little bit lost about all of this.
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: I just wanted to add two more details that might be important to consider.
1. I have my jyusho set to my aunt’s address. For personal reasons i don’t plan to use that address going forward.
2. My property after the stigma is only worth around 200万. The highest with regular market price would be around 900万more or less:
by kento726