A lot of the YouTube-related income I declare as Misc income in addition to my normal salary is paid to me in PayPal, in USD.
I use the USDJPY rate for that day to estimate the profit in JPY for tax purposes.
However when I move the profits to my Japanese bank account (which I have to since PayPal accounts are limited to 1M yen) PayPal converts using a much worse FX rate than current (typically 5 to 7 yen per USD less – and it doesn’t even record that in the transaction, making tracking back to the original lots a nightmare). And despite having USD denominated accounts at Sony Bank, PayPal refuses to use them, forcing that conversion at their predatory rate.
This isn’t a fee, it’s just being shafted by PayPal on their large spread.
Can what is effectively an FX loss be somehow included in the tax return and offset other income? As 為替差損? Or since I systematically move the USD funds to JPY account on the day I receive them to avoid having to do FX related accounting, could I just use the PayPal FX rate that was used when the funds are converted to JPY instead of TTM to estimate the income?
by lostinoverstress