Make sense to get married just before the end of the year?

[JimNasium]

This is one of those topics that kind of fit in every forum, so I put it in General.

My girlfriend and I are in the process of getting married. I was planning on submitting the paperwork in January or February, but somebody brought up the dependent spouse benefits and I’m wondering if it’s better to push it through this year. Here are the specifics of our situation.

Me - Seishain, have spent the last 2.5 years at my current company. No special expenses or tax write offs except for my iDeCo for the first time this year. Currently make about 3.8m a year.

Her - Was a student for most of the year. She finished, but her father passed away suddenly. Her income this year was very low (if anything at all). Once we get married and move in together she will start working as a freelance worker.

She should easily qualify for spouse tax relief, as well as adding her to my Shakai Hoken so she gets medical and pension.

Does it sense to speed up the marriage at the end of this year to get the benefits? Or is there anything I’m missing about doing this? Will us not living together yet affect anything? Also, what will happen from next year when she starts working again?

I appreciate any advice you guys have!

[Beaglehound]

For the shakai hoken, it would not be retrospective for the whole year, so while it would make sense to get her on that as quickly as possible, a couple of months earlier would not have a huge benefit. For the dependent spouse deduction I don’t know if you would get the whole amount (480k I think) if you marry in December. My instinct says unlikely but someone else may know for sure. Even if you did, your marginal rate of tax given the usual basic allowance, employment allowance, social insurance and ideco payments is likely to be no more than 10% national income tax and 10% local tax. Possibly even 5% national tax. So between 72k and 96k of savings. Whether that’s worth speeding up your plans for is for you to decide.

Once your wife is earning enough, she will need to come off your shakai hoken. It depends on the provider but generally this means earning an average of 108k per month for a three month period, with reasonable expectation that level of income will continue. For the dependent deduction, you will be able to claim that through your nenmatsu chosei, if your wife’s earnings for that year will be low enough.

[JimNasium]

For the shakai hoken….

Ahh, very interesting. Thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate it!