Can anyone help me estimate the Japanese tax amount for my U.S. mutual fund dividends?

[quesaisje]

I have another question for anyone with experience with this. I am planning to go back to the tax office with a spreadsheet of dividends/capital gains that captainspoke recommended. But on the E-tax website, when people fill in each dividend online, there is a space listed 譲渡のための委託手数料, which I think basically means the fee or commission that I paid to the investment company. Both the man in the tax office and the tax accountant I saw asked me about this, and I didn't know how to answer. For my U.S. mutual funds, I know what their expense ratios are, but I don't know how I should answer this question.

[captainspoke]

With the FEIE, a certain base level of dividends and gains slide by tax free there (and they don't have to be 'tax exempt' for that to happen.

You have some great advice there, but I didn't understand what you meant by "the FEIE allows dividends and gains to go tax free." Isn't the FEIE only for earned income?

Yes, the FEIE is only for earned income, but if you're within that, your income is effectively zero. So any divs/gains are calculated starting with that zero (and not added to some level of otherwise earned income). Then, the personal exemption is ~$12k, so dividends up to that point would be tax free. (Someone please correct me if that's wrong!)

Pre trump-tax-change, I was claiming family members as dependents, and IIRC, the amount that went by without being taxed was higher than now. (I retired a few years ago, and switched from using the FEIE to FTC--pension is not earned income--so my knowledge of this is not current, tho I do think that's how it still works.)

[TJKansai]

With the FEIE, a certain base level of dividends and gains slide by tax free there (and they don't have to be 'tax exempt' for that to happen.

You have some great advice there, but I didn't understand what you meant by "the FEIE allows dividends and gains to go tax free." Isn't the FEIE only for earned income?

Yes, the FEIE is only for earned income, but if you're within that, your income is effectively zero. So any divs/gains are calculated starting with that zero (and not added to some level of otherwise earned income). Then, the personal exemption is ~$12k, so dividends up to that point would be tax free. (Someone please correct me if that's wrong!)

Pre trump-tax-change, I was claiming family members as dependents, and IIRC, the amount that went by without being taxed was higher than now. (I retired a few years ago, and switched from using the FEIE to FTC--pension is not earned income--so my knowledge of this is not current, tho I do think that's how it still works.)

Got ya. I have been doing that too over the years, offsetting dividends and some cap gains with my standard family deduction. I never hit it exactly though, so I always pay a bit.

In 2019 removed my 20-year-old so so he could get his own stimulous payments. I also sent in an amended return removing my wife, as I learned Trump doesn't like people who marry non-Americans (unless they are Slovanian supermodels I guess).

[TokyoWart]

With the FEIE, a certain base level of dividends and gains slide by tax free there (and they don't have to be 'tax exempt' for that to happen.

You have some great advice there, but I didn't understand what you meant by "the FEIE allows dividends and gains to go tax free." Isn't the FEIE only for earned income?

You still have the Standard Deduction after taking the FEIE which would be $12,400 for a single or $24,800 for a married-filing-jointly return. You are correct that you have to stack the income excluded by FEIE to determine tax bracket so there's a good chance one doesn't benefit from the 0% tax bracket but even so the Standard Deduction applies before that investment income generates taxes.