I guess what I’m wondering is if this is normal. My wife and I came to Japan together on her work visa, so I’m on (what I believe to be) a dependant visa. I got permission from my ward office to work part time up to 28 hours, but I’m still on her insurance. I was told by the company I work for that if my income goes over the set insurance amounts that I would be contacted to get on the company’s insurance, but until then there would be no purpose to do so (especially since they said it would cut into my paycheck a little bit). But almost every month my wife’s company is asking for my paystubs to make sure I don’t go over those amounts. Would that responsibility not fall on the company I work for? It just seems weird to me and wanted to make sure this was normal. Thanks!
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It’s because if you earn <¥1.3 million per year you can be a category 3 insured person (which means your health insurance and national pension is covered by your wife’s Shakai Hoken).
If you exceed ¥1.3 million per year (or expect to exceed ¥1.3 million per year) then you can no longer be a category 3 insured person. And instead you’d have to either enroll in, and pay NHI and national pension yourself (category 1 insured) or, you get a job which enrolls your own Shakai Hoken (category 2 insured).
But as you’re on a dependent visa you also shouldn’t be earning what immigration deem you financially independent (although there is no set guideline for what immigration deem to be financially independent… a good guideline is to not exceed the ¥1.3 million threshold so that you can remain category 3 insured m.
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> Would that responsibility not fall on the company I work for?
It’s your companies responsibility to put you on your own insurance if you are above the limit.
But it’s also your wife’s company’s responsibility to make sure her dependent, you, qualifies as a dependent.
Now asking for each paycheck every single month is a bit much. But maybe you’re toeing the line and they’re being overcautious.
It’s normal if you or your wife aren’t doing the tax adjustment by yourselves, and you are applying for deductions.
Also in many companies, this procedure is outsourced to specialized accounting firms, if you aren’t comfortable sharing this info with your wife company you have the option to confidentiality send it to the accounting company directly and just a notification to your wife’s one.
My company asks my wife’s earnings once a year because she’s my dependent. It’s a tax calculation thing. Usually they don’t ask for exact numbers but if it was close to the threshold, maybe they would.
> I got permission from my ward office to work part time up to 28 hours, but I’m still on her insurance.
The ward office doesn’t grant you permission to work. The immigration office grants that permission. I’m somewhat worried about whether you’ve been unwittingly breakin the law breakin the law (sick guitar solo).
>But almost every month my wife’s company is asking for my paystubs to make sure I don’t go over those amounts.
Right, the every month thing seems sort of odd although are you really close to the amount?
>Would that responsibility not fall on the company I work for? It just seems weird to me and wanted to make sure this was normal.
The thing is if you go over you have to go off her insurance. This is not an automatic process. There’s no centralized authority that sends the company a message that says “hey, he’s over the limit, make A pay for him stop paying for him B”.
In other words, this is perfectly normal especially if you’re close to the amounts.
Highly likely to be beneficial to crunch numbers and maybe take a week or two of unpaid leave from your job to remain just under that 1.3mil threshold if it’s really that close. Back-paying deductions and the NHI etc etc you’d be liable for is an expensive pita.
As someone else here put it… Ask me how I know…. 😆
pretty normal, my wife has to do this as well for my work
Every month is not the normal… but every few months would be normal. I wonder if the company has had an issue with this before and want to make sure they have no issues going further.
My company has gotten in trouble for spousal insurance stuff before and had to take steps to correct it.
Recruiter here.
Very common in Japan.
It’s how they keep salaries low.
Even if you refuse to share they will find out anyway from your tax return.