RetireJapan

Racked with guilt over these past few days, I decided to post for advice.
UK passport holder and have lived in Japan for 30 years. I have PR and make good use of NISA and iDeco options available to me.

I invested offshore for 20 years and that investment (A) made profits which I'm mentally and financially prepared to pay capital gains tax on.
My rural accountant told me that I should pay this tax once those monies are paid into my Japanese bank. Hmm - OK!

My mother passed away recently and that inheritance (B) along with (A) was then put into another offshore fund and is happily ticking over very nicely.
This combined value is now over 50 million.

I don't have any non-financial assets - all my monies are in a diverse set of funds all under this one entity.

I went through a big firm of accountants in Japan to check how much extra inheritance tax I had to pay and that document was sent to my local tax office. But apart from that I haven't declared or informed the Japanese govt about where my total investments are held. I did send 70K GBR into my Japanese account and showed my local bank the inheritance paperwork which they accepted. This was only part of the total inheritance I received.

What do I need to do?

And what do I need to expect after I declare my wealth to the Japanese govt? Will I get taxed on my investments every year (@10% or higher?)
I understand the 'need' to pay capital gains on any profits made after I close my investments and send them to Japan but, and here's another question, if banks only guarantee savings to 10 million, do I need to open various bank and a post office accounts if I send all my savings to Japan?

I want to be as transparent as I legally need to be (but ...)

There are a few issues here.

One is declaring overseas assets worth more than 50m yen. This does not involve paying tax, just telling the tax office about the assets.

The other is declaring and paying tax on realised capital gains/dividends (it does not matter whether you bring the money to Japan or not).

If you are going to have over 10m yen in cash it might be worth opening accounts with different banks (each bank is insured up to 10m yen.

Anyone else?

That you simply have an amount of money over the ¥50m threshold is not taxable.

But your investments will be taxed to the extent that in a given year there are any capital gains, dividends, or interest. Of course you can hold shares/equity indefinitely, and while you hold--and they hopefully appreciate--there is no tax until you sell at a profit.

Note that all the numbers have to be reported in their yen value on the separate dates of purchase and sale. So something purchased in 2011 or so when the yen was quite strong--and sold now--will have a larger apparent appreciation due to that currency effect.

Edit: If you're prepared to eventually pay tax on your offshore investments, you might try to prepare for that by tracking your cost basis for what you purchased. For example, if you bought shares of Fund A on a monthly basis over the years, you'll need to set up a spreadsheet for those details--dates purchased, number of shares, amounts on each purchase date (converted to yen on that date), and so on. Japan uses an average cost basis method when calculating gains, so when you sell (cash out), it's the average cost of all the shares that will be important. (You cannot declare that you sold a specific lot of shares, or what may be possible in other countries, such as FIFO, first in first out, or LIFO, last in first out.)

Sure, teasing that out may be a real challenge, but it's needed. Also, and I'm unsure of this, but offshore schemes often have high fees, which may be deductible from any profits.

Thank you for both replies.
I already prepared the paperwork for the initial capital gains on the 20-year investment.
Good to know about the need to just declare but not be taxed on 'just having' investments overseas.
Ok - I'll get on the case, thankful for your advice