foreign cash. UK and Japan.

[Jake]

The UK and Japan share financial information now.

Any idea on what kind of information is shared? Where I'm domiciled for tax purposes, yearly income, how much I have sitting in the bank, investments etc.? I'm just curious...
Thanks!

Your UK bank will share with HMRC the following:

1 Name, address, Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and date and place of birth of each Reportable Person.
2 Account number
3 Name and identifying number of the reporting financial institution;
4 Account balance or value as of the end of the relevant calendar year (or other appropriate reporting period) or at its closure, if the account was closed.
5 Capital gains, depending on the type of the account (dividends, interest, gross proceeds/redemptions, other)

HMRC then pass on to Japan.

Interest payments are obvious, they will look for substantial increases in account balance too, although what is considered substantial is anyone's guess

[Bubblegun]

An audit here (like in most countries I suspect) is just a never ending series of requests for more information and documents. If someone is found to have underpaid or not reported taxable income etc. they will have to pay the tax they owe and a penalty. In serious cases they can also be prosecuted. Not fun.

My wife has been audited twice (she runs a small business and moving tax offices seems to attract attention). Not fun at all.

Sorry to hear that.
It seems dealing with a big bureaucratic institution in either country isn’t fun.
The UK, gateway system is just a nightmare, if you don’t have a current passport or able to access a credit check system.
Japan on the other hand has that huge linguistic problem of most people being for better or worse, technically illiterate.
Neither is fun. As you said trying to stay on the right side is important and not falling foul is the best.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for someone with dyslexia to work their way through it all.

[Bushiman]

The UK and Japan share financial information now.

Any idea on what kind of information is shared? Where I'm domiciled for tax purposes, yearly income, how much I have sitting in the bank, investments etc.? I'm just curious...
Thanks!

Your UK bank will share with HMRC the following:

1 Name, address, Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and date and place of birth of each Reportable Person.
2 Account number
3 Name and identifying number of the reporting financial institution;
4 Account balance or value as of the end of the relevant calendar year (or other appropriate reporting period) or at its closure, if the account was closed.
5 Capital gains, depending on the type of the account (dividends, interest, gross proceeds/redemptions, other)

HMRC then pass on to Japan.

Interest payments are obvious, they will look for substantial increases in account balance too, although what is considered substantial is anyone's guess

Great info Jake!
Thanks for posting...

[KyushuWoozy]

HMRC then pass on to Japan.

Do we know if they routinely do this for every Brit resident in Japan or do they just have the potential to do it? Or do they just do it for specific individuals based on Japanese authority's request?

[KyushuWoozy]

I know a few people who were invited to the tax office to explain the provenance of their money.

What kind of amounts did they transfer do you know?

[Jake]

HMRC then pass on to Japan.

Do we know if they routinely do this for every Brit resident in Japan or do they just have the potential to do it? Or do they just do it for specific individuals based on Japanese authority's request?

Any Brit living here and known to their UK bank would have been contacted a few years years ago to provide the necessary info as mentioned in a previous post. Failure to do so would have been a big issue.
My assumption is that the data for every Brit would be automatically shared by some computer wizardry Can't imagine everything being done individually.
What NTA does with it is anyone's guess.

[RetireJapan]

What kind of amounts did they transfer do you know?

I believe any transfer over 100,000 or so is logged, but I might be wrong about that.

[RetireJapan]

Any Brit living here and known to their UK bank would have been contacted a few years years ago to provide the necessary info as mentioned in a previous post. Failure to do so would have been a big issue.
My assumption is that the data for every Brit would be automatically shared by some computer wizardry Can't imagine everything being done individually.
What NTA does with it is anyone's guess.

My understanding of the data sharing system is that the tax authorities can request bank account info (up to and including all individual transactions) from overseas accounts, but it doesn't happen automatically. You have to come to their attention, at which point they actively pull your file, as it were.

I don't think this would happen automatically. I mean, between foreign residents and Japanese citizens with accounts overseas, there must be tens if not hundreds of millions of accounts.

[Jake]

I don't think this would happen automatically. I mean, between foreign residents and Japanese citizens with accounts overseas, there must be tens if not hundreds of millions of accounts.

Can't see why not, from Wikipedia:

The information and its exchange format are governed by a detailed standard, whose details are listed in a 44-page long document.

Each participating country will annually automatically exchange with the other country the below information in the case of Jurisdiction A with respect to each Jurisdiction B reportable account, and in the case of Jurisdiction B with respect to each Jurisdiction A reportable account:

Take all the data and filter (damn computers) from highest value down. No need to investigate ALL foreign accounts as I suspect most are not worth chasing. J Gov did mention a some time ago they were looking at accounts worth ￥100 million or more. Just scraped in fortunately

[RetireJapan]

Don't think I will be on the radar... ever