Handling taxes on RSU payout from former company acquisition (US, UK, Japan)
Hi everyone,
I’m posting here to try to get peoples perspective on a tricky tax matter I’m facing, if anyone has been through something similar or knows about this I’d really appreciate to hear your thoughts.
I’m a non-Japanese permanent resident living and working full time here, lived in Japan for over 10 years but did a small stint in the UK where I worked at a US-incorporated company at their London office. Recently news came to light that the company will be acquired in a cash deal. The good news for me is I have vested RSUs from my time working there which needed a liquidity event to pay out. Now that is confirmed to happen (early next year) and I’m being asked to submit details to get the payout.
It’s not going to be a life-changing amount of money for me, but a nice pay out for the work I did there and enough that I don't want to risk losing it through overpaying tax.
The confusing part is since the company is US-based, and I earned it while living in the UK, but now live and work in Japan - who should I pay tax to and what amount? The 3 countries being involved here is the part that’s making me wonder how complicated a three-country case like this is. Am I massively overestimating the complexity of this, or is this the kind of thing I should seek advice from an international tax accountant for?
The main thing I want to know is if that are any traps I should be aware of where the foreign tax credit I get in Japan wouldn’t fully cancel out the double taxation. My worst nightmare is a situation where I’d end up paying the tax twice and not be able to get it back.
Thank you.