RetireJapan

Hi there,

I'm a non-US citizen, resident in Japan. and opened my Interactive Brokers account earlier this year as an investing novice hoping to put some money away for the future, which has all gone fine so far, although the website can be pretty tough to navigate. Now I'm thinking ahead to reporting dividends and whatever else to the tax office. If anyone has any experience of this, I'd be really grateful to hear of what exactly I need to get. As a natural worrier, the thought of forgetting or making a mistake that might come back to bite me kind of scares me. Any advice is appreciated!

Not fund/stock purchases that you have not yet sold, but other things need to be converted to yen. Other things means anything coming to you--interest, dividends, quarterly and other fund distributions, and proceeds from anything you sold.

I'd suggest two spreadsheets. One for payouts, the other for sale proceeds (which involve a previous purchase, which needs to be calculated in).

For payouts I organize by date thru the year, january thru december. List the date, the payer, amount in $, conversion rate for that date, and (converted) amount in yen. (Keep total interest rec'd separate from total other distributions.)

Sales need a couple more columns, but I still organize thru the year by sale date (purchase dates will differ). The extra columns are for purchase date, cost in $, TTM rate for that date, and resulting 'cost' to you in yen. The difference of the cost in yen and proceeds in yen is in the final column (profit/loss). Totaled at the bottom. Actually, the tax office doesn't want the total overall result, they want two figures--your total proceeds (total of all sales), and what it cost you to buy that same stuff--total cost. (You'll see the overall number after those get input.)

I use this site for conversions: http://www.murc-kawasesouba.jp/fx/past_3month.php