Greetings J-fam,
Many moons ago I lived and worked in Tokyo for several years as an ALT. A transformative experience, some of my golden years were had, but I moved away and went into arguably bigger and better things.
I am a marketing executive now at a small, fully remote agency and have been making well over six figures for some time. That being said, I pine to go back to Japan.
My rough plan would be getting the easiest possible ALT job with the lightest possible working schedule simply for the visa sponsorship, while I work remotely during the evenings for the advertising firm, getting paid cash directly into my overseas bank account.
I did this for quite some time when I was working in Europe, and no one ever caught on. Does anyone here have any experience working for an overseas job on top of a Japan job, / being overemployed ([r/overemployed](https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/)), or cautionary tales from a legal perspective to perhaps change my mind about this “masterplan” ?
Cheers!
1 comment
Two huge hurdles with this:
– immigration: you say you need a work visa. Well then you’re also going to need immigration’s permission to work for a non-domiciled Japanese employer/client (well tbh as an ALT you would be on instructor visa, which basically limits you to only compulsory education schools in Japan too… so you’d even need immigration’s permission to work for many domiciled Japanese employers/clients too).
– taxes: this would be “domestic sourced income” so you need to declare it to Japan regardless if remitted to Japan or not. The NTA (national tax agency) are unlikely to care about the immigration part mentioned above, but they will certainly want their slice of the pie, and will care if you get caught earning domestic sourced income you’re not declaring.
So if you get immigration’s permission: https://www.isa.go.jp/en/applications/guide/nyuukokukanri07_00045.html and correctly declare your taxes then no problem.