-
- Foreign residents must pay taxes during the period they reside in Japan. The following is an explanation of the taxes with which most everyone will be personally familiar. The taxes we pay help to improve our daily lives and provide us with security.
Income tax
-
Personal income tax
Employees who receive salaries from the companies that they work for must pay personal income tax on the money they earn. The amount of taxes paid depends on the amount of earnings.
Withholding taxes must be taken out of company employee salaries every month and are paid to the Tax Office by the company. This method for collecting taxes is known as withholding taxes at source.
The taxes that are withheld at source every month at source are the estimated taxes due for the year so that every year in December an adjustment is made and the final amount actually due is calculated.
- If the number of dependents in your family has changed during the year (Up until December 31st; births, etc.), or,
- If you paid life insurance premiums or casualty insurance premiums during the year,
please notify your company.
- Final income tax return
If you are self-employed, you must calculate the taxes that you owe and report this to the nearest Tax Office. This is called submitting a final income tax return. Salaried employees who earn more than 20,000,000 yen per year and persons that have income other than the salary they earn from their company and persons that earn more than one salary, or have income in foreign countries, must submit final income tax returns to the Tax Office.
These final returns must be submitted each year between February 16 and March 15. Taxes must be paid by March 15.
- Tax refunds
In the case of company employees, when calculating final taxes, the final amount is adjusted so that it is not absolutely necessary to submit a final tax return. However in such cases as persons who have paid very large sums for medical services during the year, have met with accidents or robbery or whose assets such as their house or furnishings have incurred serious damage, or have had to pay for damages resulting from disasters or just bought a new home, a part of the tax on their income will be refunded to them. Therefore, they should submit a final tax return as early as possible in order to
receive their refund.
- Withholding tax slip
The withholding slip will be necessary when you go to renew your visa so it should be carefully retained.
 |
|
