Ok, it is not so cool. I am not sure about how much I would have to pay in America, but here I certainly have to pay an arm and a leg for not even being full time employed. I mean, yes, I make more than just about every other girl my age here. Actually I probably average about probably all women in Japan. This would be because they are domesticated house gnomes that waddle about dressing like a cheap night and pushing around their kids. But we aren't talking about them. We are talking about taxes. Statistics show they they can pull in an astounding 1,900,000 yen a year. It looks like a lot, but really it is about 19,000 dollars. That is about average. Men tend to make more. Still a very male dominated society.
So anyways, after my first 'year' in Japan, I actually got paid back for my taxes. This is when you remember that that 'year' consisted of the months August to December for that tax period. And I got paid back very little. Perhaps 3000 yen and change. A nice dinner. Really nice.
This last year, I worked nearly every one of those months, or at least 175 days worth of the year, and I got rewarded for my services with a very nice heavy tax. The funny thing? My taxes pay me. HAH!
Whats more, is that heavy tax right there? We, the gaijins of Japan, actually pay less (albeit not by much) than the citizens. And many of the citizens are kind of furious about it. They want us to be paying the same amount as them. And to enrage them further, there are many gaijins that don't pay. And continue to live here. Perhaps tax evasion is not as big of an issue here in Japan, and people just don't get arrested or deported for it or whatever, but a large amount of self proclaimed people (not working for anyone I am affiliated with) that they just don't pay taxes with no repercussion. Perhaps they have never tried to leave the country and have a fake address registered though...
And for anyone wondering what you should do if you are still an American citizen and living in Japan and what exactly you need to be doing about taxes, you want to be filling out
- 255EZ
- 1044EZ
The 2555EZ form. It essentially is a tax exemption form that you can only fill out that if you made less than 95,000 US dollars outside of the US. And if you are making that much, you need to be getting me a job! You would also fill out the 1044EZ form. This form pretty much states that you made no income in America for that calendar year.
This process prevents you from being double taxed in both American and Japan.
In addition to the awesome tax money that I have to pay, which is over a thousand dollars, or 100,000yen, your health insurance will also go up.
Your health insurance is at a minumum in the first place because it is based off of what you made the previous years. So my first year, it was about 1,500 because the previous year I was unemployed in Japan. My second year was about the same because I had only worked 3-4 months the previous year in Japan; thus the income for that year was so low, it was considered unemployed. This year however, I worked a full year the previous year and have the taxes to prove it, thus my health insurance skyrocketed. I am now to pay somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 yen, or 200-300 dollars every month. And this is still considered the kokumin hoken that I wrote about previously. If you have the shakai hoken (shakai meaning society so basically declaring yourself a working member of society), you will pay a lot more. But if you have the shakai hoken, then your company must pay for half. So if your total there was 80,000 yen, you company would pay 40,000yen and you the other half. You can see how the kokumin hoken is still cheaper. Also since I am not considered a full time employee, I would not be eligible for the shakai hoken.
So pretty much at once, within the same week, you will get hit with a nice heavy tax and a much larger health insurance bill. My total is probably over 300,000 yen. Being an adult sucks
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