End of year tax paperwork (年末調査)

[RetireJapan]

I just handed in my tax paperwork to my employer, and I realized I am not 100% on what it all means.

So for the insurance deduction, the new system has 40,000 yen maximum allowance for each of life insurance, health insurance, and pension. Is this a tax reduction or a taxable income reduction?

Is it worth trying to max these out?

[adamu]

Do you mean 年末調整 (not 査)?

I think it's a taxable income deduction. My understanding is that it's to correct any witholding tax your employer deducted from your salary over the year. For the health insurance and pension, I think you include them only if they were not automatically deducted from your salary in the first place (in my case they are, so nothing to claim).

[RetireJapan]

Do you mean 年末調整 (not 査)?
I think it's a taxable income deduction. My understanding is that it's to correct any witholding tax your employer deducted from your salary over the year. For the health insurance and pension, I think you include them only if they were not automatically deducted from your salary in the first place (in my case they are, so nothing to claim).

No, talking about private insurance that you can claim for (not national health and pension)

It's on the second sheet (not the one with dependents).

[sutebayashi]

Yeah these reduce the amount of assessable income considered for taxes, not from final taxes due.

I have some life insurance policies for in case my spouse or I die, some extra health insurance with cancer coverage, and unfortunately a dopey Gakushi Hoken product.
Even though my spouse pays one of the premiums I can claim her premiums in my year end adjustment.

No point in trying to max these out, IMO, because you may end up buying pointless insurance products in order to do so.

[RetireJapan]

Yeah these reduce the amount of assessable income considered for taxes, not from final taxes due.

Eeek. That makes it even worse.

They seem to be set up so you can claim about half the premiums paid (you get the 40,000 yen deduction by spending 80,000 yen), which might make sense if it reduced your taxes by 40,000. If it's just reducing taxable income, then it probably only reduces my tax by about 10,000 yen.

Oh, well. It was worth thinking about