RetireJapan

You hit on the is the correct answer with the bolded part. Your wife's surname is still Suzuki and is encoded as such in her passport machine readable data that is used during automated check in. Smith is not your wife's surname in Japan, it is still Suzuki. Thanks, you're right, I can see the SMIT...

Two people suggested solutions, which you dismissed. What would you consider an acceptable resolution? That's a bizarre comment, the only suggestion I got was a name change, which I'd already said was an option, and not a preferred one. The other person commented that my wife's name has not been le...

Is your wife a dual national? If not, she doesn’t have a legal name in “the west” as she has no identity there. No, that's not quite right. When you marry in the US you can legally change your name at the same time. Since we married in the US, her name was legally changed at that time. We have nume...

Fairly off-topic, but I'm guessing somebody here has had this problem and hopefully someone has solved it. Let's pretend my name is JOHN SMITH and my wife's maiden name was MAI SUZUKI. After marriage, my wife legal name, in the West, is now MAI SUZUKI SMITH, where SUZUKI is a MIDDLE name, not a SURN...

You said "A distribution" not "distributions". Is this a lump sum withdrawal? I recently found out that New Zealand (where I currently live) taxes lump sum IRA withdrawals differently from regular periodic IRA withdrawals. Regular, periodic, withdrawals are taxed as income, lump ...

Hi, I recently heard that US social security survivor benefits may be heavily taxed on the death of the spouse. National Tax Board is assuming the surviving spouse will receive the benefit over their life expectancy and taxing on that amount. For example, a 70 year old woman has a life expectancy of...