My Number shenanigans edition
I hope everyone is doing okay out there. The rain and floods look pretty scary.
I got an email this week from our HR department at work, talking about changes to the My Number system. There are basically two big ones that happened in May this year.
The first change is that the government will no longer issue the paper My Number cards (マイナンバー通知書) to babies and new residents.
The second change is that it will no longer be possible to register changes to the information on the paper cards.
Basically the government would really like you to get a plastic My Number card. This is just the latest thing they have come up with to nudge you into doing that (after the online stuff, the MyNa points, and the proposals to use My Number cards as health insurance cards or driving licenses).
If, like me, you prefer not to get a plastic My Number card, you can still use the paper cards as long as your information has not changed, or get a copy of your jyuuminhyou if it has.
This week’s links
- Autonomy is certainly one of my goals. Not quite there yet: The Definition of Success Is Autonomy
- Post from the past. I no longer think we are three years from financial independence… Planning 2
- Nineteen books in five minutes: TL;DR: The Best Finance Books in One Sentence
- These horrible scenes will only become more common (and get worse) in the future. Important to consider how safe the place you live will be in the future as climate change gets worse: At least 20 dead, 14 missing after floods in southwestern Japan
- It’s the quarterly misleading article about the Japanese pension fund! Of course there was no loss, and the fund has likely mostly recovered now: Government Pension Investment Fund posts record quarterly loss of ¥17.71 tril
- This nags at me: Thinking bigger to motivate yourself
- So this is still a thing, then? We found it almost impossible to rent a house in Sendai -no idea why 😉 A significant number of foreigners experience housing discrimination in Japan
- What is wrong with the other 23%??? Survey finds 77% of Japanese think Olympics cannot be held next year
- I stopped growing a couple of years ago: The Road to Self-Renewal
- I guess I’m not the only one who is midly depressed at the moment then: The Bear Market in Happiness
- This is so true, and yet so difficult: The 100 hour asset
- I wonder how long the DC (during corona) era will last? When the Facts Change, We Change Our Minds (Anatomy of a Sale)
What do you think? Anything good in there? I enjoyed #9 this time.
This week’s books
I’ve been reading Don Winslow’s collection of short stories this week and enjoying it very much. Broken is a good introduction to his work. It’s somewhat violent and depressing at times.
Given how much he writes about US police, his Twitter feed is surprisingly outraged at their behaviour.
These are trying times. It may not be appropriate to say “cheer up” (from the sidelines, since we haven’t been seriously affected), but I do hope that a lot of corners get turned soon.
Thanks for posting these weekly threads. I just started reading your site maybe a month ago. These curated collections of articles are a good read every week.
Regarding #7, this also applies to home loans in Tokyo too, or at least it did. Interest rates for home loans are much less for Japanese vs those with a foreign passport. I see a lot of Chinese moving in so perhaps that’s changed or they just deal with it.
In my experience there is no difference based on nationality: rather the main factor is whether you have permanent residence or not.
Agreed. I just finished paying off my 35 year loan 7 years early……there was no requirement beyond having permanent residence. I do assume that having a Japanese spouse might help.
I thought the same thing when getting my car loan. I took out 2.8 million. (yes, yes, we should buy our cars in cash. This is my dream car, MX-5 ND2 R, and I love it to death, and I got it brand new for 1 million off msrp, right place, right time). Any the bank we went to has an * by its advertised intrest rate. So 2.8% was the best rate. And then you go and talk to to them and they explain that they have to look over your application and it will be 2.8, 3.8 or 4.5 depending on what they decide. I thought surely I would get 3.8 (I have “perfect” credit and a decent job.) Nope. They said it was no problem to give me 2.8. That being said, it depends on the bank and who you deal with it. We went to a few banks to just inquire about housing loans. One bank loan officer just said “not fluent in Japanese, no loan.” Basically, “we will find any excuse to not help a forienger.” My regular bank said, “no problem at all if someone like your wife can help you with the harder Japanese.”
Hey, I need one of those for my grocery shopping!
(Did you get that super nice red, or something else?)
Hi Ben. I’m wondering why you prefer not to get a plastic MyNumber card?
At this point it’s more me being stubborn than anything else. I don’t like the mission creep, I don’t think the government is up to running a comprehensive system like the one they seem to want, and I think it’s not very well thought-out.
Until this year few people bothered to get a card, so it was difficult for the government to mandate using them, but if the percentage of the population that has them goes up significantly that may change in the future.
We have some posts about it if you are interested in my paranoid ramblings!
https://www.retirejapan.com/?s=my+number
Agree on Mission Creep. Anyone who has lived long enough knows this is going to quash the free use of cash as I definitely see a financial tracking system emerging. Not good.
My two yen.
Bought a used house three years ago, Had no trouble getting approved for a loan, though the terms of the loan were basic/nothing special. I’m not married but have permanent residence. I had no money to use as a deposit and a friend helped me with the more difficult Japanese bits.
The whole process surprised me because it took only two months. Started the process at the end of August, moved in by the end of October. My view from this experience is that there are a surplus of houses and apartments. My impression was that the realty company was more than happy to make a sale.