Expat Pension adviser for Australians?

[AustinJapan]

Thanks Stockbeard!

I am going to the pension office here this week to try and confirm whether I even qualify for a pension and other stuff like,

a) Will the Japanese pension still be paid to me if I leave Japan?
b) Is it a threshold thing?, (what are the bands?), or is it based on years worked?
c) What might be my entitlement if I can keep employed as is?
d) Are there rules or is there means testing? (married, own a property [here, anywhere], can I own shares, bonds etc.,?
e) Does Japan-Australia have any office capable of helping someone work through the details?

No doubt the pension is feeble and getting more so, therefore whatever else we can do now counts!

[RetireJapan]

Thanks Stockbeard!

I am going to the pension office here this week to try and confirm whether I even qualify for a pension and other stuff like,

a) Will the Japanese pension still be paid to me if I leave Japan?
b) Is it a threshold thing?, (what are the bands?), or is it based on years worked?
c) What might be my entitlement if I can keep employed as is?
d) Are there rules or is there means testing? (married, own a property [here, anywhere], can I own shares, bonds etc.,?
e) Does Japan-Australia have any office capable of helping someone work through the details?

No doubt the pension is feeble and getting more so, therefore whatever else we can do now counts!

That's relatively easy.

a) yes
b) it is based on months paid in (the minimum to vest is 120 months)
c) you can check online and you also get an annual statement by post
d) no
e) doubt it

Make sure you go to a pension office rather than talking to the pension desk at a city hall. The latter is unlikely to know what they are talking about.

[AustinJapan]

Cheers.

[AustinJapan]

I made it to the pension office today..finally! The place is called, 年金事務所客様相談

I walked out with the following knowledge.

1) I contribute to a plan called Kyosai nenkin. 公立学校共済
2) Kyosai nenkin has no business with the nenkin office. They are not in a position to give me any advice, offer any information etc.
3) There is no Kyosai office anywhere in the land. Instead, there is a help line which I was offered.
4) there is no way of checking or calculating your pension entitlement by going to the web and inputting a number
5) I have acquired 205 months of contributions to it and will have accumulated 328 months worth by the time I retire assuming I stay employed at my current employer.
6) they have no idea how much pension this would entitle me to but they said it won’t be much and they added that it depends on my salary. Whether that is the salary I was paid overall (relatively low) or the salary I was paid on my last pay check (relatively high?) The were not prepared to say.



The staff at the little booth ran back and forth frantically to little tables behind temporary walls with various errands as she dealt with multiple customers’ enquirers. After one journey she presented me quite surprisingly (given she had just explained they have no truck with Kyousai types) a sheet of paper called a (hihoken shakiroroku shokaikaitouhyou) 被保険者記録照会回答票 .

I asked her to jot down in Japanese any questions she could think of that may be pertinent to my case when I call this ‘help line’ Next stop is to type out these questions and hire a translator to make the call to the office for me.

The staff at the university I work in is sympathetic and polite but just shrugs her shoulders if I ask her about this. Unfortunately the nenkin staff said that that person who shrugs her shoulders is precisely the person I need to talk to to get the details.

The aim here by the way, is to establish whether I should leave Japan now and start acquiring months towards my Aussie pension - at present working in Japan only counts to my Japanese pension which we all know is a pittance.

[RetireJapan]

That's very interesting. I am also paying into kyosai nenkin (now the same as kosei nenkin, by the way). I get a full record of my contributions and (current) projected payout in my annual 年金定期便: https://www.retirejapan.com/blog/japan- ... date-2018/

You should be getting this as well, sometime around your birthday each year.

[AustinJapan]

Thanks. I’ll start a search for those forms.
Assuming you are correct and Kosei Nenkin now equals Kyosai Nenkin I was just given information which is categorically incorrect, and in many ways disturbingly so.

[RetireJapan]

They made them the same a couple of years ago, but they are still administered by the kyousai unions.

My online account now shows kyousai contributions and projected payouts (it didn't used to).

[AustinJapan]

Read the other day that you have to spend 35 years in Australia between the ages of 16 and retirement age* in order to qualify for the full-pension in Australia. I've already blown it. In my case, it means I should have left Japan after 15 years. Also found out that there is there is a department at Centrelink called 'International Services' +61362223455 . (I haven't tried to call yet, so no complaints...yet!)
*Retirement age determined by DOB. Born from 1967 or later I believe it might be 70.

Reference for the 35 years rule: https://www.canstar.com.au/account-base ... -overseas/

[AustinJapan]

Link for the Japan - Australian pension agreement.
https://www.dss.gov.au/about-the-depart ... -questions

[AustinJapan]

Info update.

Spoke to International Services at Centrelink

1) Got through almost immediately first time. (miracle?)
2) Can go back to Aus at 67 and get full pension if I am basically broke. (x/35 rule only applies if O/S., O/S = >186 days/calendar year)
3) Asset, Income tested. (Currently) Own 749.99KAu of property? = get pension, Own 750K? = get zero. (Threshold is indexed to CPI so will go up)
4) Any Japanese pension that is collected will decrease the Aussie pension collected although it is currently not dollar for dollar and in favor of the Yen you are getting.
5) Current rate for singles is 1900AU a month.

General Comments

Paul Keating, ex-Prime MInister, so proud of his superannuation schemes introduced in the late 80s/early 90s, on TV the other day said the pension is pretty much just a 'Destitution Fund' nowadays. Nice one Paul. Of course, being ex-pats overseas we can't play the super game like Aussies at home- or at least that is my understanding.

Seems that if you are in 50s, the savings you can eek out until retirement maybe just enough to disqualify yourself from pension, however one has to think more along the lines of, if you do manage to save enough, to say, last five to ten years (stocks etc.,) you could then collect the pension as your assets deteriorate to below the threshold.

Aha Cheerie thoughts