Kokumin Nenkin Tsuinou: I Paid 600,000 Yen of Back Pension for My Child

I made a choice. I paid the kokumin nenkin of my child.
Kokumin nenkin is the national pension of Japan, and tsuinou means paying later for months that were postponed. Even when I searched in Japanese with the words “kokumin nenkin, tsuinou, parent pays”, the story of a person who actually did it was hard to find.
So here I write about how I came to pay about 600,000 yen, the tax saving from the social insurance premium deduction, and what the paperwork was really like.

The notice from kokumin nenkin arrived

My child finished university and started working.
Not long after that, a notice about kokumin nenkin arrived.

It was for the months postponed during the student years. It was not counted as unpaid, but there were still months that had not been paid.

Just after starting a job, paying was not realistic

Life just after starting a job was not easy.
Repayment of the student loan.
Repayment of the money borrowed from a local bank for living costs at university.

There was no room to send money to the pension on top of that. That was the reality.
Right now it is impossible. That is what I thought.

What happens to the postponed months of kokumin nenkin

It bothered me, so I looked into the system.
Gakusei noufu tokurei, the rule that lets a student postpone the payment. The deadline for tsuinou. The difference from simply not paying. The effect on the pension in the future.

Kokumin nenkin reaches the full amount over 40 years, from age 20 to age 60.
If the postponed months are left as they are, the pension amount in the future may go down.

I looked into it, but I found no answer. Still, it stayed on my mind.

The reality of about 600,000 yen

The postponed period was 3 years, 36 months, about 600,000 yen in total.
Divided by month, about 17,000 yen.

It is not money I have to spare. To be honest, it was heavy.
Even so, I thought I would pay it.

The reason is not clear. I just did it as a parent.

I learned that the social insurance premium deduction could be used

While I was looking into it, I found one thing that was a relief.
When a parent pays the kokumin nenkin of a child, the parent can use the social insurance premium deduction on the tax return.
I paid the 600,000 yen directly from my own savings. So I could use the deduction myself.

That means the whole amount, about 600,000 yen, becomes a deduction from income.
It depends on the tax rate, but by my calculation, tens of thousands of yen come back.
The pain of 600,000 yen became a little lighter.

If I had not known, I would have lost money.
The pension system is complicated, but it is worth looking into.

The paperwork for tsuinou was more trouble than I expected

After I decided to actually pay, the paperwork took time.
I called the pension office and asked them to send the application form for tsuinou.
I filled in the papers that arrived, sent them back, and waited for the payment slips.

It took about two weeks for the payment slips to arrive.
The slips that came were split by month, 36 of them in total.
I paid at the counter of the bank, in two rounds.

Small things like this are not clear until you do them.
This is the practical part that does not show up when you search on the internet.

Tsuinou has a deadline.
Within 10 years from the fiscal year after the postponement.
Once that deadline passes, you can no longer pay.
For my family, it was just before the deadline.
If it had been half a year later, the option of tsuinou would not even have been there.

When I told my child about this, my child said, “I did not know.”
Of course.
When you are young, you have no interest in how pension works.
That is exactly why a parent has to notice and act.

What if I had not paid the tsuinou

The thought came to me. If I had not paid the tsuinou, what would have happened?

The period of gakusei noufu tokurei does count toward the years needed to qualify for a pension.
But without tsuinou, it is not reflected in the amount.
In other words, the pension you receive goes down.

Calculating from the full amount of kokumin nenkin, not paying for 3 years (36 months) means about 60,000 yen less per year.
Starting to receive at 65 and living to 85, that is about 1,200,000 yen over 20 years.
Pay 600,000 yen, take back 1,200,000 yen.
Looking at the numbers alone, it was not a bad decision.

Of course, if you do not live long, the money does not come back.
But if you think of pension as insurance against the risk of living long, there is meaning in paying.

My honest feeling: the 600,000 yen I wanted to invest

To be honest, I wanted to put this 600,000 yen into Japanese high dividend stocks.
If I had, the result today might have been different.

But a blank left in the pension record of my child bothered me more.

The conversation back then

Work 40 years and the pension reaches the full amount.
Thinking that, I remember saying on the phone, “Stay at your job for a long time.”

There is not much a parent can do.
But what I could do, I did.

Was this decision right

I still do not know if this decision was right.
I cannot say for sure that I have no regrets.

Even so, at that time, there was no other way for me.

There is one thing I think.
I want my child to earn money soon. Even 10,000 yen a month is fine.
If my child can stand on their own feet, that is enough.

Related stories on this blog: When My Parent Died, I Had No Idea Where to Start — So I Asked the Office to Tell Me Everything / I Spent 1.3 Million Yen Building a Family Grave in Japan. Was It Worth It?