Joachim

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@bunburyoudoujp And yet the amount of Chinese nationals migrating to Japan is staggering… they hate Japan but want to live in Japan xD

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@callistoroll You can live a happy life working and living in Japan

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

The people who most need to read this won’t get past the first paragraph. The rest of us sit wondering how we’ve reached the point where a journalist from a once-respected newspaper is consciously peddling arrant nonsense out of blind allegiance to an ideology.

[Ellen Datlow @EllenDatlow]

PayPal is updating their ToS to let themselves give your data to merchants starting Nov & they're banking on people not knowing to opt out, SO to opt out before they start: go to Settings >Data & Privacy > Manage shared info >Personalized shopping, & toggle that shit off

[HiraganaNinja 🇯🇵 @hiragananinja]

Embarrassing. USA UK France Italy Australia and Canada refuse to join the peace ceremony of Nagasaki for Israel.

[Reading Japanese 日本語 @jpn_tadokuorg]

新（あたら）しい5000円（えん）札（さつ）のお菓子（かし）を買（か）いました。１万（まん）円（えん）札（さつ）を出（だ）したら、新しい5000円札のおつりをもらいました。このお店（みせ）のおじさんが、銀行（ぎんこう）へ行（い）ってがんばってもらってきたそうです。N

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@bunburyoudouuk At the end it all comes down on you are not allowed to be happy in a country they chose to be miserable haha, so any opinion that’s opposite of their view is either sexist, racist, transphobic, etc… 😆

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Calling a man a man is not 'bullying' or 'punching down.' Crossdressing straight men are currently one of the most pandered-to demographics in existence, and women are under no obligation to applaud the people caricaturing us.

[Gaijin Mommy @GaijinMommy]

I fixed it for you! Next time you rank safe countries be sure to remember that Asia exists…

[Grummz @Grummz]

We are up to 20k job losses in AAA.

Shoulda let your men be men and your women be curvy, Xbox.

You care more about virtue signaling than games and jobs.

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@kaizenB79210 @randomyoko Wow the entitlement of native english speakers wanting every other culture to cater to them.

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@bunburyoudouuk Wish him the best, hopefully to a place where they don’t hate kids xD

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@bunburyoudouuk True, although for some reason many chooses option 2 😆

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@bunburyoudouuk 3. Gaijin who got dragged to Japan by their spouse and hate it but can’t go back to home country.
I know some xD

[HiraganaNinja 🇯🇵 @hiragananinja]

Let’s talk with sensitive gaijin san carefully

🚫nihongo jozu (never!)

🚫talking to in “English”

🚫saying i’m happy in Japan

🚫saying Japan is safe country

🚫romaji is not Japanese

🚫saying we don’t use 🙏 for greeting

🚫asking where are you from? ←new

[Matt in Tokyo @matt_in_tokyo]

It appears that foreigners not paying tax is a real problem in Japan.

Delinquent payments of permanent residents may be nearly double that of Japanese nationals.

Here is the data I found on foreign residents vs Japanese nationals when it comes to mandatory civic payments.

————————————————

Is this a real problem?

Or is it just political scapegoating (as many have assumed)?

According to Asahi Shimbun,

「地方自治体からは「納税の履行を確認すべき」「滞納していれば、許可の取り消しも必要」など将来の財政負担増を懸念し、ルールの整備を求める声が寄せられていたという。」

"It's reported that local governments have been calling for the establishment of rules out of concern about future increasing financial burdens, stating 'we should check [residents'] tax payments,' and 'if they're in arrears, we also need to cancel [their residency] permission.' "

(Source: https://t.co/x98Znn5TW5)

My take from reading this is that it doesn't seem like the issue was completely invented, but sounds like there's been pressure coming from local governments (though the issue may have been brought up at a convenient timing).

————————————————

I looked for statistics reported by local governments to shed some light on the reality of the situation.

It was very difficult to find statistics showing Japanese nationals vs foreign residents, but I found the following data reported by Toshima-ku in Tokyo in 2021 regarding mandatory health insurance payments.

(Health insurance payments are included by the LDP's plans to revoke permanent residence if in arrears.)

————————————————

As reported by Toshima-ku former assemblyman Ryouji Kutsuzawa (@mk00350)'s YouTube video:

Percent of people with delinquent health insurance payments:

Japanese nationals: 10.7％
Foreign residents: 45.6％

Percent of foreign residents with delinquent health insurance payments:

Permanent residents: 18％
Non-permanent residents: 51.8％

(Source: https://t.co/KM4H2xlkxU)

In this case, the difference between delinquent payment of foreign residents with permanent residence vs Japanese nationals is nearly double.

Non-permanent residents were even higher. Over 50% were in arrears. That actually blows my mind.

It's not hard to speculate that other taxes and civic payments (such as residency tax) may be in a similar state of affairs.

————————————————

I also discovered in my research that currently the law permits the government to seize your assets (including your bank account) in order to recover owed amounts of residence taxes (and potentially other mandatory civic payments).

So it seems the law is already quite strict if you lapse long enough (though I'm not sure of the rate of enforcement).

(Source: https://t.co/eWvOcf75xL)

————————————————

Although I understand #GaijinTwitter's reaction to this news story, I think we can't assume that we're representative of the foreign population in Japan.

We're just an English speaking subset of a population that largely hails from Asia (China, Philippines, Korea, etc). There are likely many personal circumstances affecting different people, and various cultural attitudes at play in regards to civic responsibility and so on.

As a foreign resident, my attitude has always been that I'm a guest, and it should go without saying that I should pay my taxes, make efforts to learn the language, and contribute more than I take. I think this attitude is widely shared among our community.

In that case, let's promote those values here on X, even in situations where it might be easier to feel betrayed or treated as a scapegoat.

————————————————

Japan's not a perfect country, but looking at the above stats, it is an understandable situation to me. And it does seem like a reasonable ask for residents to pay their taxes. (It's what we signed up for after all.)

As guests, I also think it's difficult to expect 100% of Japanese people to be on board with us staying here, or for them to want the government to be lenient on us. It's a problem that exists in a lot of countries (and arguably has some legitimate reasons).

The negative comments we read, or the negative experiences people have experienced, may not be directed at us, if we have always paid our taxes and largely sought to set a good standard for foreigners in Japan. Unfortunately, we are just in the same bucket.

My experience of Japan has still been overwhelmingly positive. I'd still recommend the people who want to come here to come here. To me these news stories are water under the bridge.

Then again, that's just my way of looking at it.

Is there something I missed? What's your take?

Matt

[Joachim @Aen3id]

@jakeadelstein How is this bad?, because you don’t want to pay taxes?, in every country tax evasion is punishable by law.

[Nihongo Life｜日本語で日本を理解する @nihongo_no_kai]

2000 videos

https://t.co/QyJpez0sIV

now we have 2000 videos for self-learning Japanese

this is part of what we do. as long as you can choose what to watch for your needs and interests, you can self-learn Japanese entirely with our videos.

now it's your turn to take action