I’ve recently found myself in a run of bad luck. Through misunderstandings, and admittedly partially my own fault for not being more proactive (assuming taxes came out of my paycheck like they did with my previous employer), I’ve been hit with a tax bill for 2 1/2 years of unpaid city taxes. The city is now making my company levy my paycheck and is taking out 80,000 yen a month until it’s paid up.
Simply put, I’m either choosing to pay for my food, utilities, or rent. My company warned me that it would be coming out of my check, but they said they couldn’t tell me how much yet (at the time). Today my first check came in since that conversation, and needless to say I was floored. I have no idea how I’m going to get by now and have no idea what I should do. I was already barely making enough to scrape by before this. Any advice is welcome, I’m at a complete loss at what to do.
Edit: Thank you all for the information, it seems a trip to city hall is in order. Yes I’m aware of my mistake now. I should have been proactive. I’m also fully aware of where my assumptions have landed me. Cheers.
Edit 2: I get it folks. I messed up, I owe the money, and it’s my cross to bear. I could spend all day trying to rationalize why I never thought I had a problem, but it wouldn’t do me a lick of good now, now would it? I will be paying it in full, and I have absolutely no intentions of skipping the country. I consider Japan my home. But by all means, please continue with the dogpiling if it makes you feel better about yourself :’)
40 comments
Go to the city hall and try to negociate with them
Talk to the city hall and negotiate the repayments. They usually do this, if it helps bring a japanese speaker
You can try going to the city office and negotiating. Apologise a lot and accept full responsibility but say that you are suffering. Hopefully they will reduce the payments. In the meantime, try and find some part-time work to supplement your income.
Call them and ask for a revised payment plan. They usually have an English speaking staff member in the office if it’s difficult. I’m not saying they 100% will do anything but they have been known to be accommodating in extreme circumstances.
Didn’t you receive notices about paying a certain amount of city tax ? If you forget to pay, they usually keep sending them.
You can try to negotiate with city hall. I don’t really have any experience in doing that but if you tell them you can’t buy food,I’m guessing they will be able to do something for you.
Reduce your utility usage, cut all expenses, your diet is now made of rice, no meat no fruits. If ever you have to stop paying something, it’s the rent. You can’t be thrown out
Look up videos on those people who survive on like 96 yen of food a day.
How do they even have your bank info? When I went to negotiate pension and insurance payments they told me they didn’t have my bank information.
I don’t have anything new to add other than to say I was in this position myself where I assumed my company was withdrawing taxes correctly – I understand your frustration.
Even if a company is withdrawing tax for you from your salary, it’s your responsibility to ensure they are doing so correctly.
As most other people are saying, you need to negotiate with your city hall on a repayment schedule. Show them your budget right now and what repayments you can afford, i.e. be as prepared as possible and show how seriously you are taking this.
You need to start budgeting. Reducing your rent by moving to the cheapest possible place will free up some cash flow.
You don’t sound independent or competent enough to live in Japan, a society where personal responsibility is heavily emphasized. Perhaps it is best that you return to the country where you came from, and only come to Japan again once you have mastered what Gen Z folks call “adulting”.
The fact that you’ve not paid your taxes in over two years, but have spent it all unknowingly, is a red flag. How are you saving for your future?
Go to city hall. Dogeza and promise you’ll pay them, work out a payment plan, start living within your actual means instead of what you think is your means.
The 80,000 is meant to be punitive because you received multiple red notices, which you ignored. You had at least a year to resolve the issue before it came to this, so tough luck mate
I think they probably tried to contact you 100 times before doing this.
City office people are generally pretty reasonable, so you can definately talk to them about this. Although I assume you knowing tried to evade and ignore them so not sure how it will play out.
Move to another city.
Protip for next time: always check your 給与明細 every single month to see what’s being deducted and what’s not.
2 and a Half YEARS of residency taxes?? Whooooo!
DAMN.
You should go talk to someone at the City hall, try to negotiate some deal, but I must say – you really messed up not paying taxes for 2+ years… z.z
Note for the future: you can ignore the letters from NHK but anything else that comes from the government you need to deal with.
It sounds like you’ve lived in Japan for awhile. It’s time to grow up and deal with stuff properly.
This will be a good lesson for you. Make the most of it. If you can’t handle it and don’t want to face it, maybe life in a foreign country with a language you can’t read isn’t for you.
I’ll add that I don’t care what kind of comments people have about me being harsh on this person. They are clearly lazy, immature, or both.
(1)Pre – my number dodging city taxes was quite common, especially for those here a year or two, and at one point it also wasn’t connected to visa renewal for foreigners. Plenty of Japanese ‘grownups’ didn’t pay them either.
In many cities the boe has forced the dispatchers to deduct them monthly to avoid the convenience store payment, can’t read Japanese warning letters, issues.
(2)Pre- my number there was also a huge amounts of teachers at the nova or alt type companies that didn’t pay health or pension for years, infact they had their own private health insurance schemes and kept newbies in the dark about public schemes as much as possible.
(3) When the system has caught foreigners/teachers I know for non payment of any of the above they send multiple warnings and then track down your employer or even old employer, I’ve paid ‘this years’ city taxes for somewhere I have left.
I’ve known broke people or unemployed but not on hello work people hit with back payments (or current pension/health) that go and negotiate with them to reduce payments to a comfortable level – many of the Japanese people waiting with you are doing that so don’t worry.
(4) Don’t ignore your mail, and realise that if you haven’t been saving enough for a short term extra outlay to cover 8 man then you are totally screwed if you have any medical emergency ( 33 percent could still be significant money) or have to go home suddenly. Or for an alt perhaps your company looses the contract and the new guys don’t want/need you.
In my experience, Japanese are lenient when you are willing to repay especially in city halls, provided that you haven’t received notices in red colored letters, they usually come with a deadline.
I used to ignore the letters but had them with me until I realized I was in the same situation as yours.I was an intern and joined the company without a break, for some reasons, my employer missed it.
I was completely new in Japan working environment and relied on colleagues to explain some details.Luckily I caught up with it at 20man and paid everything right away, which left me poor for few months!
I can only offer you the same advice as others and that is to go to the city hall and try to negotiate a longer payment plan. If you do not find much success there you might want to drop by the Citizen’s Affairs department (生活課） at the city hall while you’re at it. They are more concerned with the living conditions of people and while they will not reduce your tax burdens they might have some advice on how to get by with less money until you’re in clear again.
My other advice is do not ignore envelopes in your mail, especially when they are red or fancy looking, that’s the way they warn you.
Hoping for the best.
get a new job and it will take them some time to come harass you at the new workplace
Hope you weren’t planning on getting PR anytime soon dude cos this will nix any hope of that for sure for a good long while unless you marry a local
I did this after my first two years in Japan. I was an idiot, ignored the official papers from the ward office on multiple occasions. Had to go there, apologize profusely and pay it off over the next year. I was dumb, you’ve been dumb and anyone commenting right now that you are some kind of super rare case that’s upsetting the wa of Japan is being a twat. We all make mistakes, just learn from it and move on. Good luck to you.
>and admittedly partially my own fault for not being more proactive
Pretty sure that’s the definition of completely your fault.
>I’ve been hit with a tax bill for 2 1/2 years of unpaid city taxes.
Great googly moogly how did you not notice this does noone look and understand their pay slips anymore? Did you ignore all the notices you must have gotten?
My advice is get a second job and work 60-80h a week to pay this off and be more aware and careful in the future. As others have said a trip to city hall to get onto a payment plan is absolutely in order.
Student life without scholarship scks
This is what adulting is. You check every envelope and paid your bills on time. I know many a ALT in this situation and the city did not lower the amount because of the all those notices.
Must be Interac! Sounds like some shit they would do instead of try to help OP out by dealing with the situation!
Everyone has given good advice on what to do. But your second priority is budgeting. I would say:
– move to a share house or the cheapest place you can possibly find.
– no eating out, no extras, no drinking, ride a bike everywhere. Look up how to eat as cheap as possible.
– cut down every extra expense you have. Netflix, phone bills, etc. Get a library card if you need entertainment.
You’re going to have to live like a monk, but it should be doable for a year or two. If you can’t make due on a smaller amount of money, maybe it’s time to leave Japan.
Damn, how many increasingly red envelopes did you have in your mailbox? I missed *one* tax payment once when between jobs and they sent me 3 letters within a month. Your mailbox must be exploding with them. Did you just ignore it all?
One of my college friend had similar problem, it was National health insurance. He didnt pay for about 1and half years. He got lots of red notices but dont know he ignored or something, but later on the amount was deducted in one lump from his bank account without his knowing😂😂. He called city hall and asked for explanation and he was informed that he has been sent lots of letters and all mentioning that amount will be deducted from bank if not paid within x days.
He now pays his tax and nhi seriously 😅
Just pay rent and don’t worry about the others as you can get food for cheap and don’t really need utilities for a while, you’ll be fine.
Take advantage of the free park showers toilets and water.
The OP seems totally irresponsible. I guess his company doesn’t appreciate the extra hassle they have been foisted with. It will be brown pants time come contract renewal – I guess his cavalier attitude manifests itself at his work too.!
Bizzare state of affairs when a municipal entity can levy unpaid taxes fron one’s paycheck!
Good on you for wanting to fix this. People suggesting that Japan might not be for you based on this mishap have serious superior complex issues. Or they’re just mean. All the best to you!
Being late on you taxes is equal to have big issues when you get to immigration to extend your visa. I know people that forgot to pay 2 months and they got the visa extension declined and had to pay the taxes anyway.
Indeed is not your employer fault, it’s 100% you own fault for not checking that when you got into the new employer. They usually don’t take the taxes payment out from your salary unless you authorized it or you ask them to do such thing to avoid issues with tax payments. Next time you should double check important stuff like this. I hope you don’t get any issues for this situation.
Best of lucks 👍
Go to city hall. Practice 土下座 before though
what? my year city tax is 100k. Your burden can’t be more that 300k…
80000 yen a month? How much do you have do pay in total?
Also if you only have to pay 30000 yen a month for city tax (just guessing) how can the fine be triple that?
> I get it folks. I messed up, I owe the money, and it’s my cross to bear.
Don’t let everyone get you down. You screwed up, you’re making it good. Go to the city office, apologize, and ask them to help set up a payment plan that won’t make you homeless or starve.
If you can, pick up a second job or a side gig to earn extra cash to pay this back faster. The sooner you have this monkey off your back the happier you will be. The payment plan is just the minimum you have to pay, if you show up one day to pay a larger lump sum (or pay it all) they will be more than happy to process that for you.
The only thing this is likely to meaningfully impact is a future PR application. You need to have at least 3 years of perfect payment of your residence taxes when you apply for PR. So once you get this paid off, you have to pay all your residence tax perfectly on time for at least 3 more years before you can apply for PR.
Take care of yourself OP. Don’t let people get you down.
I did the exact same thing. Had over 2 years pilled up. Then one day my bank account was frozen and 80,000 had been sucked out by some entity. Took a trip to the bank and found out the government was the culprit. I felt like I was Luffy and the World Government had finally caught my after years of living as an anarchist on the open sea. Fortunately I was able to get everything paid but I learned my lesson. Being an uneducated gaijin does not exempt me from the law.