Declaring interests on overseas savings accounts

Even after having looked at the taxation laws, it’s still not clear to me if it is required to declare yearly interests on overseas savings accounts. Here is the extract that I found:

*”Non-permanent residents are obliged to pay income tax etc. with respect to any income which has its sources in Japan,* ***any income which has its sources abroad and is paid in this country and remitted from abroad****. In the case that a non-permanent resident receives the amount remitted from abroad to Japan yearly, it is deemed to be the remittance relating to foreign source income paid outside Japan, which the non-permanent resident earned in the year, within a scope of the remitted amount.*

*However, if the non-permanent resident has the amount paid outside Japan relating to domestic source income in the year, the payments made from abroad to Japan are first deemed to be remittance relating to domestic source income, and then if there is still the amount exceeding the domestic source income paid outside Japan, the portion is deemed to be the remittance related to foreign source income within a scope of the exceeding amount.”*

1/ What do they mean by “**remitted from aboard**”?

2/ My situation is quite simple: I have a savings account in the country I was born in, and I get about \~100 bucks of interests each first of January. The money stays on this overseas account and is never transferred to a Japanese bank account. My interpretation of the law is that I don’t need to declare these 100 bucks since the money never reaches Japan, but did I understand correctly?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

3 comments
  1. > What do they mean by “remitted from aboard”?

    Means that your passive income (=interest) is being sent here, from there.

    Often unclear in these explanations is what they mean by permanent/non-permanent resident, which should actually be phrased as “permanent/non-permanent **tax** resident”.

    This is determined by time in country, and can also be affected by your status of residence (your ‘visa’).

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