Author Topic: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!  (Read 3578 times)

Samsam

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Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« on: March 23, 2017, 06:33:03 AM »
Hey All,

I am still searching on the internet for answers but thought I would ask here too for any experiences.  My brother is in a weird situation.  He has been working in Japan and is headed home to the US but is having trouble transferring his money.  He went to his bank and they had the wrong address on file so they said it would take 2 weeks to fix it in their system and before then he wouldn't be able to transfer the money to a US bank (through a wire transfer).  He leaves in less than 2 weeks.  Some questions:
  • Is there a way to get the money to someone in the states that isn't super expensive?  I'm looking at paypal options right now but it looks like they shaft you on conversion rate and you pay a % fee on each side
  • Should he take the money out in yen and travel through customs with it? Would be about $13K US so around 1.5M Yen
  • Should he take the money out then exchange it for dollar and carry it through customs as US dollar?
  • Can he leave his money there and try to transfer once in the US?  I think this is what he is afraid

Some of the rules I am aware of is if you are taking more than 1M Yen out of Japan you have to declare it at customs. I'm not sure though if that means its in Yen or just the amount has to be declared.  Any experiences, suggestions, or interesting ways he could get around this would greatly help!  Thank you!

NoStacheOhio

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2017, 06:55:04 AM »
Which address was incorrect? Is he restricted from doing any wire transfers out to anyone?

FLBiker

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2017, 07:01:43 AM »
I can't speak to Japan specifically, but I did work in Taiwan for 5 years and bumped up against this occasionally.  I routinely "snuck" in ~$10K, but in googling it a bit it seems like this is stupid (and risks seizure).  My advice would be to get the USD in Japan and declare it to US customs.  Based on what I've read, you won't have to pay taxes on it or anything.  As I said, though, I never did it that way.  I just got the US cash and brought it in without declaring it.

popbottlepirate

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2017, 07:17:37 AM »
I was in Japan from 2008 to 2010 and I used this service monthly to send money. http://www.shinseibank.com/goremit/en/

I think there was a bit of setup time. but once setup the process was simple. Basically move money to an account with Shinsei this would trigger them to send all money in the account to my account back in Canada (I assume sending to a US bank is just as easy.) best of luck!

JLee

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2017, 07:27:36 AM »
I can't speak to Japan specifically, but I did work in Taiwan for 5 years and bumped up against this occasionally. I routinely "snuck" in ~$10K, but in googling it a bit it seems like this is stupid (and risks seizure).  My advice would be to get the USD in Japan and declare it to US customs.  Based on what I've read, you won't have to pay taxes on it or anything.  As I said, though, I never did it that way.  I just got the US cash and brought it in without declaring it.

Yeah, that's just asking for customs to take it from you.

skuzuker28

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2017, 08:22:37 AM »
The following is assuming that your brother is a US Citizen.

You can bring any amount of cash or cash-like instruments into the US, but amounts over $10k need to be reported at customs.  There is no fee or tax for this, just reporting.

However, they require reporting for a reason.  As a US Citizen, he is required to file the FinCen 114 Report Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) any year his aggregate total balances in foreign accounts exceeds $10k.  This is in addition to reporting his foreign income on his annual 1040.  Depending on when his account reached its current balance, he may have a FBAR filing requirement for 2016 (due April 15, 2017) and certainly for 2017.

Again, there is no tax just reporting.  However, the penalties for failing to report are severe so it is best to make sure he has all his ducks in a row.  Here is the IRS site for more info.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar

Samsam

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2017, 08:37:03 AM »
The following is assuming that your brother is a US Citizen.

You can bring any amount of cash or cash-like instruments into the US, but amounts over $10k need to be reported at customs.  There is no fee or tax for this, just reporting.

However, they require reporting for a reason.  As a US Citizen, he is required to file the FinCen 114 Report Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) any year his aggregate total balances in foreign accounts exceeds $10k.  This is in addition to reporting his foreign income on his annual 1040.  Depending on when his account reached its current balance, he may have a FBAR filing requirement for 2016 (due April 15, 2017) and certainly for 2017.

Again, there is no tax just reporting.  However, the penalties for failing to report are severe so it is best to make sure he has all his ducks in a row.  Here is the IRS site for more info.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar

This is awesome..this was another question I was going to ask b/c he wasn't sure if he had to file or not in US. 

Also an update I called paypal and the person I talked to seemed to think he would only get hit with a 2% fee but would have to use their current exchange rate.  I told him to try this and see what his total fee would be.  I think the only other option would be to cash it all and make sure it is reported to customs. 

To the others asking questions, yes he is a US citizen residing and working in Japan for the last 2 years. 

The address that was incorrect was that he moved after his first year and they still had his first address in the info.  In order to change it before doing anything such as wire transfers it was going to take 2 weeks to "fix the address". As I interpreted this, the Japanese bank would not let him wire transfer to another bank and close out until his address is correct.

Thank you all.

MrSal

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2017, 01:31:16 PM »
Hey All,

I am still searching on the internet for answers but thought I would ask here too for any experiences.  My brother is in a weird situation.  He has been working in Japan and is headed home to the US but is having trouble transferring his money.  He went to his bank and they had the wrong address on file so they said it would take 2 weeks to fix it in their system and before then he wouldn't be able to transfer the money to a US bank (through a wire transfer).  He leaves in less than 2 weeks.  Some questions:
  • Is there a way to get the money to someone in the states that isn't super expensive?  I'm looking at paypal options right now but it looks like they shaft you on conversion rate and you pay a % fee on each side
  • Should he take the money out in yen and travel through customs with it? Would be about $13K US so around 1.5M Yen
  • Should he take the money out then exchange it for dollar and carry it through customs as US dollar?
  • Can he leave his money there and try to transfer once in the US?  I think this is what he is afraid

Some of the rules I am aware of is if you are taking more than 1M Yen out of Japan you have to declare it at customs. I'm not sure though if that means its in Yen or just the amount has to be declared.  Any experiences, suggestions, or interesting ways he could get around this would greatly help!  Thank you!

https://transferwise.com/u/salvadorn2

Dont use banks!

USe this... the money will be there in no time. Its transfer through P2P ... I have put a referall code on the link but you are welcome not to use it if you odnt like it.

I have used it many many times from EU to USA and the money gets transferred cheap and fast... usually 2 business days

MrSal

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2017, 01:34:44 PM »
The following is assuming that your brother is a US Citizen.

You can bring any amount of cash or cash-like instruments into the US, but amounts over $10k need to be reported at customs.  There is no fee or tax for this, just reporting.

However, they require reporting for a reason.  As a US Citizen, he is required to file the FinCen 114 Report Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) any year his aggregate total balances in foreign accounts exceeds $10k.  This is in addition to reporting his foreign income on his annual 1040.  Depending on when his account reached its current balance, he may have a FBAR filing requirement for 2016 (due April 15, 2017) and certainly for 2017.

Again, there is no tax just reporting.  However, the penalties for failing to report are severe so it is best to make sure he has all his ducks in a row.  Here is the IRS site for more info.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar

This is awesome..this was another question I was going to ask b/c he wasn't sure if he had to file or not in US. 

Also an update I called paypal and the person I talked to seemed to think he would only get hit with a 2% fee but would have to use their current exchange rate.  I told him to try this and see what his total fee would be.  I think the only other option would be to cash it all and make sure it is reported to customs. 

To the others asking questions, yes he is a US citizen residing and working in Japan for the last 2 years. 

The address that was incorrect was that he moved after his first year and they still had his first address in the info.  In order to change it before doing anything such as wire transfers it was going to take 2 weeks to "fix the address". As I interpreted this, the Japanese bank would not let him wire transfer to another bank and close out until his address is correct.

Thank you all.

Do not use paypal... you get hit with 2% and they burn you on the exchange rate a little bit.

TransferWise charges 0.4% and the exchange rate is pretty much the spot rate...

Samsam

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2017, 02:05:18 PM »
The following is assuming that your brother is a US Citizen.

You can bring any amount of cash or cash-like instruments into the US, but amounts over $10k need to be reported at customs.  There is no fee or tax for this, just reporting.

However, they require reporting for a reason.  As a US Citizen, he is required to file the FinCen 114 Report Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) any year his aggregate total balances in foreign accounts exceeds $10k.  This is in addition to reporting his foreign income on his annual 1040.  Depending on when his account reached its current balance, he may have a FBAR filing requirement for 2016 (due April 15, 2017) and certainly for 2017.

Again, there is no tax just reporting.  However, the penalties for failing to report are severe so it is best to make sure he has all his ducks in a row.  Here is the IRS site for more info.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar

This is awesome..this was another question I was going to ask b/c he wasn't sure if he had to file or not in US. 

Also an update I called paypal and the person I talked to seemed to think he would only get hit with a 2% fee but would have to use their current exchange rate.  I told him to try this and see what his total fee would be.  I think the only other option would be to cash it all and make sure it is reported to customs. 

To the others asking questions, yes he is a US citizen residing and working in Japan for the last 2 years. 

The address that was incorrect was that he moved after his first year and they still had his first address in the info.  In order to change it before doing anything such as wire transfers it was going to take 2 weeks to "fix the address". As I interpreted this, the Japanese bank would not let him wire transfer to another bank and close out until his address is correct.

Thank you all.

Do not use paypal... you get hit with 2% and they burn you on the exchange rate a little bit.

TransferWise charges 0.4% and the exchange rate is pretty much the spot rate...

I'd have to look into how long between transfers they let you do. It's saying there is a 1M Yen limit.

MrSal

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2017, 03:14:33 PM »
The following is assuming that your brother is a US Citizen.

You can bring any amount of cash or cash-like instruments into the US, but amounts over $10k need to be reported at customs.  There is no fee or tax for this, just reporting.

However, they require reporting for a reason.  As a US Citizen, he is required to file the FinCen 114 Report Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) any year his aggregate total balances in foreign accounts exceeds $10k.  This is in addition to reporting his foreign income on his annual 1040.  Depending on when his account reached its current balance, he may have a FBAR filing requirement for 2016 (due April 15, 2017) and certainly for 2017.

Again, there is no tax just reporting.  However, the penalties for failing to report are severe so it is best to make sure he has all his ducks in a row.  Here is the IRS site for more info.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar

This is awesome..this was another question I was going to ask b/c he wasn't sure if he had to file or not in US. 

Also an update I called paypal and the person I talked to seemed to think he would only get hit with a 2% fee but would have to use their current exchange rate.  I told him to try this and see what his total fee would be.  I think the only other option would be to cash it all and make sure it is reported to customs. 

To the others asking questions, yes he is a US citizen residing and working in Japan for the last 2 years. 

The address that was incorrect was that he moved after his first year and they still had his first address in the info.  In order to change it before doing anything such as wire transfers it was going to take 2 weeks to "fix the address". As I interpreted this, the Japanese bank would not let him wire transfer to another bank and close out until his address is correct.

Thank you all.

Do not use paypal... you get hit with 2% and they burn you on the exchange rate a little bit.

TransferWise charges 0.4% and the exchange rate is pretty much the spot rate...

I'd have to look into how long between transfers they let you do. It's saying there is a 1M Yen limit.

Maybe until you are verified. I Do remember I had to send documentation showing it was me after I reached a certain threshold around 8,000 euros

Samsam

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Re: Getting Money out of Japan - Limited Time - Help!
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2017, 12:37:36 PM »
He went with taking it all out of the account and then closed the account. He will report it at customs.  From there it's just a matter of finding a bank that will have the best exchange rate.  Thank you all for the info - if I ever go to Japan again I know these cheaper options to transfer USD to Yen and visa versa.