月別アーカイブ: 2010年2月

Useful boring stuff

How to pay taxes?

Income tax in Japan is based on a self-assessment system (a person determines the tax amount himself or herself by filing a tax return) in combination with a withholding tax system (taxes are subtracted from salaries and wages and submitted by the employer).

Thanks to the withholding tax system, most employees in Japan do not need to file a tax return. In fact, employees only need to file a tax return if at least one of the following conditions is true:

  • if they leave Japan before the end of the tax year
  • if their employer does not withhold taxes (e.g. employer outside Japan)
  • if they have more than one employer
  • if their annual income is more than 20,000,000 yen
  • if they have side income of more than 200,000 yen

Employees, who do not need to file a tax return, will have their national income taxes withheld from their salaries by their employer, and an eventual adjustment is made with the year’s final salary. Prefectural and municipal payments have to be paid separately by the employee upon notification by the municipality.

People, who are required to file a tax return, such as self-employed persons, must do so at the local tax office (zeimusho) between February 16 and March 15 of the following year. The tax return for 2009 has to be filed between February 16 and March 15, 2010.

Random memory

I was thinking the other day about some random memories, I will share the earliest of which with you..t’s a little strange as this memory is in the third person, so maybe it never happened, or at least, didn’t quite happen as I remembered it. I remember picking up a rock on a pebble Beach, it was a large  black rock and as very smooth. There were thousands of pebbles around and as I inspected the rock I was holding, I realised it smelled of salt…within a few seconds of picking it up, I threw it like a shock-put shouting something like “Here is the stick rock!” and it cracked on a rock in front of my mind’s eye of the memory. That is to say, I watched myself throw a rock from a distance and it broke on the rock that my eye would have been resting on. At that angle I can see something shining inside and myself walking towards the broken rock. When I pick it up, my memory returns to first person and inside there are sparkling gems, like a geode. That’s all I remember…

Mind burp

This ceiling is so high, it’s like my personal sky, in all the time that has gone by, the days and nights I rest my eyes, as each day comes as a surprise, my mood becomes blue, then starts to rise, to amazing feats of happieness, peaks, and then comes down to rest, in a small scrawl of fleeting breath, those things that seem in such a mess, can be bested. And become less of a worry, a small flurry of trangled clamity, so managable once you know how. Your on top again my friend, don’t turn around, or you will soon return to ground.

Myogadani Bunkyo ku

Hi guys!!! I am from Sydney New South Wales Australia. It has been a while I haven’t seen snow for a long while! It’s a good day for me, really! Althrough I am leave Japan petty soon, however, it has been great and this stay has been quite enought for me. Thank you for everything and I am looking forward to the future to come!

Take care people stay in Oakhouse and Best of luck in 2010. Especially my house manager SATOSHI San!!!