After more than a decade in Canada, my Japanese parents are planning to leave Canada to spend their retirement in Japan. I'm looking to hear from Canadians/Americans/others who moved back to Japan after living abroad for many years. What were your general experiences? Are there any challenges that people don’t often talk about? Parents are both public-sector employees, father works as a public school teacher and mom's a hospital nurse.
The main reason they're leaving Canada (BC) is that they don’t have any extended family there. Kids (son and daughter) now live in Europe with their own families. Other reasons:
- Unaffordable cost of living in most major cities
- Bad healthcare system: 10+ hours waiting time for ER visits, years long waiting list to see specialists
- Neglected state of public infrastructure and poor public transit system
- Increased crime rates in major cities
From our research we think they'd be eligible for BC Teachers’ Pension Plan, Municipal Pension Plan for nurses, and Canada Pension Plan + Old Age Security on top of that. All of this comes out to roughly 100k CAD a year not including RRSP and other investments. Not sure if it's worth it to consult a cross border tax specialist, but my understanding is they won't be double taxed.
Thanks for reading.
by sappy60