US securities income tax on for Japan residents

[StockBeard]

Thanks for the answer! So that means you get just 10% withheld on dividends from US securities? No tax when you sell a security at a profit for instance?

+1 confirming that this is how it's worked for me so far (I've owned US shares for about 10 years now), with a US based broker (while living in Japan).

What I have not figured out yet, is how to declare that 10% as a tax credit in Japan. It seems we can, but I've never done it (arg, thinking of all the extra money I've payed in taxes makes me angry, but I'm too lazy to file a claim now).

For JP-based brokers handling US shares: I feel like I'm reading two "conflicting" statements from you retirejapan: it's unclear to me if you say that there is nothing to be done because the accounts do it automatically for us, or if people who want to claim that credit need to do it manually on their tax return form.

[RetireJapan]

For JP-based brokers handling US shares: I feel like I'm reading two "conflicting" statements from you retirejapan: it's unclear to me if you say that there is nothing to be done because the accounts do it automatically for us, or if people who want to claim that credit need to do it manually on their tax return form.

The tax-reporting accounts do all your taxes for you so you don't need to submit a tax return. However, if you want to do something fancy like claim credit for foreign withholding taxes you need to do that manually yourself by submitting a tax return.

I've never done this. The small amount of US withholding tax didn't seem to justify the large hassle of doing tax return, plus the only time I did this: http://www.retirejapan.info/blog/filing ... n-in-japan they told me putting the dividends in would increase my taxes

[N00bster]

For JP-based brokers handling US shares: I feel like I'm reading two "conflicting" statements from you retirejapan: it's unclear to me if you say that there is nothing to be done because the accounts do it automatically for us, or if people who want to claim that credit need to do it manually on their tax return form.

The tax-reporting accounts do all your taxes for you so you don't need to submit a tax return. However, if you want to do something fancy like claim credit for foreign withholding taxes you need to do that manually yourself by submitting a tax return.

I've never done this. The small amount of US withholding tax didn't seem to justify the large hassle of doing tax return, plus the only time I did this: http://www.retirejapan.info/blog/filing ... n-in-japan they told me putting the dividends in would increase my taxes

I did that for my company equity (mostly because the procedure was explained to us). Basically there is one input in the page where you declare your dividends for that.

[jcc]

I've never done this. The small amount of US withholding tax didn't seem to justify the large hassle of doing tax return, plus the only time I did this: http://www.retirejapan.info/blog/filing ... n-in-japan they told me putting the dividends in would increase my taxes

My (poor) understanding (from http://www.nta.go.jp/foreign_language/i ... df/a-7.pdf ) is that there are two ways to handle dividends: separately or aggregate taxation. It sounds like you were trying to put your dividends on aggregate taxation which would have put them into a significantly higher tax bracket than the normal dividend returns tax.

I have a sinking suspicion that perhaps you need to switch your 特定口座 to 源泉徴収なし, they'll give you the papers to file and you can then add your deductions to that. Or maybe you just need to file separately for your dividends. This is definitely something to find out...

Would dealing with a japanese mutual funds avoid this issue(they would internally be reclaiming that tax credit and whatever dividends they push out only have japans fingers in the pie)?