Pending- Law to revoke the permanent residency status of foreign nationals who fail to pay taxes

[OwenM]

I also sent a mail about this and I’ll quote the response offered

“ Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us.

I double checked the point you mentioned and confirmed the headline to be accurate.

The applications sampled were all submitted by permanent residents and their payments were checked. They applied for the permanent residency of their children. I understand how the missing details caused the confusion.

I appreciate your feedback, as it is crucial in making The Mainichi a better site. Looking forward to hearing from you again.”

Fair enough they accepted responsibility for the misleading headline. Obviously this still doesn’t paint the PR holding population in a very favourable light either

Not having kids myself I’ve not really considered how often PR holders would apply for PR for their children. Seems like they have managed to collect an awful lot of them in this random sample

[Beaglehound]

I got the exact same response.

Most of the delinquency relates to pension. I wonder when proving pension payment became part of the PR process. Maybe these parents got PR when that wasn't part of it, so didn't realise it would be checked. Not excusing folk dodging obligations but it does seem that the government is fishing for justification for a policy it has already decided on for political reasons.

[RetireJapan]

It's just mind boggling that they have documented 200 permanent residents who are in arrears for pension etc and they are making laws about it.

If pension nonpayment is an issue, why not strengthen enforcement across the board?

There must be hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in Japan who are not paying into nenkin.

(you'd think the government would have good stats on that at least)

[Moneymatters]

It's just mind boggling that they have documented 200 permanent residents who are in arrears for pension etc and they are making laws about it.

If pension nonpayment is an issue, why not strengthen enforcement across the board?

There must be hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in Japan who are not paying into nenkin.

(you'd think the government would have good stats on that at least)

Firstly. I’ve done no research. But as I understand things they aren’t making the law just to get PR holders to pay taxes.

I think this is linked to the bill to end the utterly abhorrent technical intern program to give more people a path to normal working visas, and hence permanent residence.
I’m suspecting the additional legislation regarding willful non-payment by PR holders was to sweeten the deal a bit to allow what is ostensibly “progressive” legislation. (Otherwise they’d have been rushing into parliament with dozens of AEDs..)

Part of the policy change will be to streamline the PR system in advance of an expected increase in applicants.

As we all know, when you are on a working visa you need to show you’ve paid taxes to get it renewed. That goes away with PR.

It seems to me some poor bureaucrat has been tasked ex post facto(as they say in Hogwarts) to justify the additional condition around PR.

Now here’s a question. How will they know PR holders are not paying their taxes? That is unless we are supporting applications for dependents..

[TunaSki]

Now here’s a question. How will they know PR holders are not paying their taxes? That is unless we are supporting applications for dependents..

I recently read that Immigration is eventually merging with MyNumber (https://www.tokyoweekender.com/japan-li ... o-combine/) and the dates are all somewhat combining as a big 2025 overhaul of the system.

As pension, tax, and health insurance is already merged with MyNumber, when immigration merges, I guess it would be pretty easy for them to develop a system that extracts all residence card numbers, and then automatically flags up any with a bad pension record, or or missed payments for health insurance and tax.

[captainspoke]

... As pension, tax, and health insurance is already merged with MyNumber, when immigration merges, I guess it would be pretty easy for them to develop a system that extracts all residence card numbers, and then automatically flags up any with a bad pension record, or or missed payments for health insurance and tax.

Not criticizing you, but if I were running immigrations (or the tax office, etc), I wouldn't want to be in line to become the 'enforcement' entity for these (to my eyes) separate things. As the person running immigrations, I wouldn't want to become somehow responsible for tax enforcement (national and local), or pension payments, or health insurance. I'd want to do immigrations business, and let the pension system deal with those payments, let the health insurance system deal with that stuff, and so on.

And I say here "I wouldn't want to", but I'll guess the bureaucrats in charge of those areas (and workers in the 'field' end of it all) might feel the same way. Just who might be willing to say/volunteer, "yeah, we'll take on the policing function for all these things"? I foresee some difficulties along these lines.

[TunaSki]

... As pension, tax, and health insurance is already merged with MyNumber, when immigration merges, I guess it would be pretty easy for them to develop a system that extracts all residence card numbers, and then automatically flags up any with a bad pension record, or or missed payments for health insurance and tax.

Not criticizing you, but if I were running immigrations (or the tax office, etc), I wouldn't want to be in line to become the 'enforcement' entity for these (to my eyes) separate things. As the person running immigrations, I wouldn't want to become somehow responsible for tax enforcement (national and local), or pension payments, or health insurance. I'd want to do immigrations business, and let the pension system deal with those payments, let the health insurance system deal with that stuff, and so on.

And I say here "I wouldn't want to", but I'll guess the bureaucrats in charge of those areas (and workers in the 'field' end of it all) might feel the same way. Just who might be willing to say/volunteer, "yeah, we'll take on the policing function for all these things"? I foresee some difficulties along these lines.

They wouldn’t be responsible for enforcement of tax, pension, and health insurance payments.

They would be responsible for revoking the PR (and maybe other status of residency too) for anyone flagged up as not paying when they should be.

I guess given that immigration are already required to check for pension, health insurance and tax before granting PR to someone, it’s something they are maybe already used to doing? Now it seems they will just have more power to make it easier for them to revoke PR after they have granted it.

[captainspoke]

So immigrations would be relying on the tax offices (national and city halls), and the pension agency, and I guess city halls again for health insurance payments, to notify them of delinquencies?

As PR, I renew my residence card, a trivial thing, something like every seven years. Would I now need to submit new paperwork at that point? Or would immigrations be tasked with checking up on me more often?

If someone is not paying their taxes, the respective tax office should be handling that. If someone is not paying their pension, the nenkin agency should be policing that. And for health insurance, city hall again (tho a different section from residence tax).

Maybe it will differ (become easier?) when MyNa gets further integrated, but right now it's the (PR) applicant who collects and presents those records.

And perhaps as you say, "maybe other status of residency too". Yes, training all visa applicants that all these things are necessary from an early stage (all visa renewals, not just PR), might be a way to alter/improve the behavior of foreigners overall.

[TunaSki]

So immigrations would be relying on the tax offices (national and city halls), and the pension agency, and I guess city halls again for health insurance payments, to notify them of delinquencies?

No, because if it’s true that immigration’s system is to merge with MyNumber (as I mentioned a few comments up) then it would be easy for them to obtain that data themselves because pension, health insurance, and tax systems are already merged with MyNumber.

So immigration would just need to design a system which automatically flags up bad pension, health insurance, tax records.

If you understand how digital infrastructure, primarily databases, work. They have a primary key. Which in Japan is MyNumber. Then all the other systems which have their own unique number (pension number, health insurance number, employment insurance number, residence card number, driving license number) with the correct permission, will all be able to communicate and extract data from each system.

So immigration would potentially be able to type in a residence card number into their system (or just batch extract) and then at the same time be presented with theta person’s pension, tax, and health insurance payments. Where as currently they cannot do that because immigration system is not merged with MyNumber and it’s why PR applicants have to include a lot of documents with their PR application.

This is just my guess in how immigration will discover PRs who are not paying when they should be anyway.

If you want to learn more about primary keys and foreign keys you can read up on it on sites like this https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/what ... reign-key/

[captainspoke]

... So immigration would just need to design a system which automatically flags up bad pension, health insurance, tax records. ...

I guess that's sort of my point--why would immigrations need to design it? Shouldn't those other agencies/entities be doing their own respective parts? Or instead of immigrations (and tax authorities, and health and pension agencies), maybe those designing the overall MyNa system should be building in things that would aid/simplify catching not only PR deadbeats, but also anyone in the non-PR population who is behind on these things?

That the MyNa system would be flagging those with PR (and other types of visa holders), would then be a (simple) side effect of the overall system working to insure that everyone is complying.