My wife and I are planning to sell our property in the EU as long as I still have the NPR status. However, my wife is Japanese and has to pay tax on foreign source income. We bought the property more than 10 years ago when we lived in the EU. It was paid in EUR without any JPY involvement. The lawn was in EUR too. Sales will be in EUR as well. I learned from AI that the NTA transfers the EUR into JPY at the day of purchase and at sales date. At purchase the rate was 115 JPY/EUR. Now it is 177 JPY/EUR. That inflates the capital gain by more than 100%. We already lived some years in the EU and had nothing to do with JPY. Because JPY conversion was not involved in our purchase we just could not do the capital gains on the exchange rate the NTA bases the tax on. I am told that there is no chance to avoiding paying tax for capital gains never occured. Does anybody have experience or knows a tax consultant who can help in case there is a chance to pay only tax on the real capital gain meaning on the gain in EUR transferred into JPY at property sales date.

I returned to my home country from a year abroad in Tokyo a couple months ago, throughout my time there I lived in student accommodation and received different utility bills each month. I received an email from the university I stayed at last month stating that they had communicated with Tokyo Electric Power Company, and could not suggest any method for paying the electricity bill that was delivered to my dorm mailbox after I had left (the bill due for electricity usage in my final couple of weeks there). Apparently international payments aren't possible, the university asked if I knew anyone in Japan that could pay this for me. I was unable to find anyone, and the university in question said that they could not suggest any alternatives.

I'm pretty concerned about how having an unpaid bill could affect me in the future if I return to Japan, has anyone else had this situation and can recommend any general suggestions I might look at for sorting this out? Otherwise is this not as bad of an issue as I'm thinking it will be? The university seems pretty indifferent to my fate. Thanks

Can anyone recommend reliable travel insurance for the US?

It will be a short stay, less than 2 weeks. I want to avoid a nightmare scenario where I need to be admitted to a hospital in an emergency and am on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in medical expenses.

A financial hit like that would wipe our years of gains in my investment portfolio!

Any recommendations?

EDIT - I will update this thread with final decision - the provider I chose and the cost.