Just opened a sole proprietorship, and I have a few questions

I have been looking through this sub, trying to see if some of my questions had already been answered. There are so many good threads here, so I bet it might be the case, but I have not been able to look through them all, so I am sorry if I have missed something.

I am a Dane with residency in Japan (spouse visa). I move here in July.

I have been working as a freelancer in Denmark since December 2023 with a VAT number, which I closed down this month after getting my blue tax paper (青色申告承認申請書).

I do not have an accountant because my wife insists on taking care of my finances, which are handled on a Wise business account.

While I don't doubt my wife's capabilities, I fear that she is missing a lot of details and sometimes get things wrong.

So these are my questions:

  • According to what the tax office told my wife, even though I did not become a resident of Japan until July, I still need to pay tax for the income I had in Denmark between January and July unless I can prove that I paid tax in Denmark during that period, which means I need to hire a translator to translate my Danish tax papers and hand them over to the Japanese tax office. I find this strange. Why would I have to pay tax for a period where I was not a resident? I did not get my visa until the end of June. But according to my wife, I need to declare my income from January 2024 to January 2025, regardless of when I moved to Japan.

  • When I was VAT registered in Denmark, my Danish customer had to pay me 25% VAT of my services, do I now need to change this 10% to match the Japanese consumption tax? Because I am technically exporting my service from Japan to Denmark… or not? I find this a bit confusing.

  • Regarding business expenses, such as renting office space etc. I am saving all receipts, both physically and digitally by taking pictures of them. For digital storage, is there an app that I should use instead? What would you recommend?

by ThatFluffyDane

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