RetireJapan

ivanpgs wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:44 am I think I will join the Company DC and then call SBI to stop my contributions for as long as I contribute to my Company DC. Then, it would be easier when I leave the company to resume iDeCo contributions calling SBI again I guess.

Sounds good to me, but beanhead made a good point that you didn't acknowledge in the last reply.

beanhead wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 8:33 am One thing I don't think has been mentioned is the product availability. Does the company DC have suitable low-fee equity fund?
All-countries or developed countries or even S&P 500 would all be acceptable to me, as long as it is passive and low-cost.

There's no point joining the company DC if it's going to perform worse than iDeCo due to poor performance or high fees.

adamu wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 10:11 am

ivanpgs wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:44 am I think I will join the Company DC and then call SBI to stop my contributions for as long as I contribute to my Company DC. Then, it would be easier when I leave the company to resume iDeCo contributions calling SBI again I guess.

Sounds good to me, but beanhead made a good point that you didn't acknowledge in the last reply.

beanhead wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 8:33 am One thing I don't think has been mentioned is the product availability. Does the company DC have suitable low-fee equity fund?
All-countries or developed countries or even S&P 500 would all be acceptable to me, as long as it is passive and low-cost.

There's no point joining the company DC if it's going to perform worse than iDeCo due to poor performance or high fees.

You don't want to get all the paperwork done an realize your retirement funds are now indexed to JGBs....

adamu wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 10:11 am

ivanpgs wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:44 am I think I will join the Company DC and then call SBI to stop my contributions for as long as I contribute to my Company DC. Then, it would be easier when I leave the company to resume iDeCo contributions calling SBI again I guess.

Sounds good to me, but beanhead made a good point that you didn't acknowledge in the last reply.

beanhead wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 8:33 am One thing I don't think has been mentioned is the product availability. Does the company DC have suitable low-fee equity fund?
All-countries or developed countries or even S&P 500 would all be acceptable to me, as long as it is passive and low-cost.

There's no point joining the company DC if it's going to perform worse than iDeCo due to poor performance or high fees.

Oh, I did not realize beanhead's message! I think both were writing at the same time and as it took me a lot to get the links and message written and his message got just before mine!

Absolutely, I checked the funds available and there is one for 外国株式 (as well as other balance funds, bonds, etc) from Nomura, the 野村外国株式インデックスファンド・ MSCI-KOKUSAI (確定拠出年金向け), with an aceptable fee of 年0.09889%. (find link below)

https://www.nomura-am.co.jp/fund/pros_gen/Y1400017.pdf

My current and only fund at SBI (Select plan) is the eMAXIS Slim 全世界株式（除く日本）, with a nice 年率0.05775% fee. While the fee is almost double, I think it is still acceptable. I can also take the option to contribute 20K yen to the iDeCo and join the Company DC with my employer contributing alone, but I think I can probably make up the fee money with the tax free part of my additional individual contributions to the Company DC (27.5K - 20K = 7.5K * tax free percentage). The maintenance fee for SBI would also probably be almost 1/3 of the current one.

Hopefully that make sense

ivanpgs wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2024 11:13 am 野村外国株式インデックスファンド・ MSCI-KOKUSAI (確定拠出年金向け), with an aceptable fee of 年0.09889%. (find link below)

https://www.nomura-am.co.jp/fund/pros_gen/Y1400017.pdf

MSCI Kokusai is developed countries ex. Japan. So you may want to consider adding Japan back in as it's the largest market cap country after the USA. They probably have a TOPIX fund. And emerging markets if you want to tick all the boxes.

In the end I have decided to go for the option to join the company's DC but with only company contributions, with a generous 28,000 yen / month. It is a matching DC but you can decide not to match the company's contribution. That way I can continue to contribute to SBI´s iDeCo, but lowering my current 23,000 month contribution to 20,000 yens.

I know I am not maximizing tax reduction (I could have chosen to stop iDeCo contributions at SBI and go for matching company's contribution with 27,000 to reach the top monthly of 55,000 yen) but I am okay this way.

Know it's time for me to contact SBI to ask them for the documents to be filled up by my current employer. But I got confused by all the options at the SBI´s side.

I think I am in the following scenario:

転職等で勤務先が変更した（加入者【掛金をかけている方】のみ）
変更後の勤務先は共済組合員以外

Given that scenario there are 3 sub-options:

1st option:

変更後の勤務先で企業型確定拠出年金がない、
もしくは企業型確定拠出年金はあるが加入しない
または、変更後の勤務先の企業型確定拠出年金に加入する場合で以下の条件を全て満たしている
・マッチング拠出を行っていない
・掛金が年単位化されていない（毎月拠出）

2nd option:

企業型確定拠出年金がある場合で、以下のいずれかに該当している
・企業型確定拠出年金でマッチング拠出を始める
・企業型確定拠出年金での掛金が年単位化となっている

3rd option:

2022年9月30日以前より企業型確定拠出年金に加入しており、加入時点の企業型確定拠出年金の規約においてiDeCoとの同時加入を認めていなかった

Given that my Japanese is a bit rusty, I understand that I might be in either "1st option" or "2nd option", but I am a bit confused when reading them.

It seems to me that "1st option" states that:

The new company does NOT have a Company DC or) it has a Company DC but I am NOT joining it or) it has a Company DC, I am joining it AND there is not matching from my side occurring AND there is no annualization of the contribution.

And the "2nd option states that:

The new company does have a Company DC and one of the next options is met: a) I do matching contributions OR b) I do choose an annual contribution.

My conclussion

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think my case would be the "1st option", where I have iDeCo and contributing the max 23,000 yen, I joined a new company that has a Company DC, that I decide to join, but without contributing to it (no matching).

This is their website with all the options. I think that after using one I am redirected to a form where I need to fill up my data and they will likely send me the documents that I need my new employer to fill up so that the new iDeCo contribution limit is set (probably given my case 20,000 yen a month).

https://go.sbisec.co.jp/prd/ideco/application.html

Sorry for the confusion, but I hope it makes sense what I just wrote above. If anyone has been in a similar situation or can help on the topic I would appreciate it.