Not too bad, really
Just got our bill for property tax for this year. It is pretty much the same as last year, so not particularly interesting unless you don’t own a property and are interested in how much tax might be. I’ve done a few of these, you can see the most recent 2021 version here (interestingly, the assessed land value but not the building value has gone up since then).
Property tax is based on the assessed value, not the market value. We bought the manshon a few of years ago for 9m, and I think the current market value might be around 15m (based on other units that sold recently). For our manshon, the assessed land value is 254,884 and the unit value is 4.3m, so our tax is based on the combined 4.58m.
There are actually two separate taxes included in our property tax, the real estate tax (64,100 yen per year) and the city planning tax (14,500). It is paid in four installments.
Based on talking to other people, the tax on houses seems to be proportionally less than on manshons (compared to the market value). Perhaps the assessed value is less.
You also get a discount on property tax on a new build, probably to lessen the blow until depreciation kicks in. You can ask your estate agent or house builder to give you a rough idea of how much tax will be due on the property.
So basically property tax isn’t such a big deal, but you should be aware of it and how much you will need to set aside for it each year.
Recently we have been given the option to pay with a credit card (as well as the usual pay cash at a bank or combini, or by bank withdrawal) but I signed up for bank withdrawals originally and can’t be bothered to figure out how to change that.
The valuation for tax purposes may be used to determine the value of the property for inheritance tax purposes, but the tax office may choose to revise it upwards. More detail in this Reddit thread.
How about you? How much was your property tax this year?
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I suppose it’s only balanced out a little by residence tax here, but I have a sister in a Chicago suburb who pays $18k/yr in property taxes–which is used to fund local schools. (ours here is ¥50,400)