RetireJapan

Hoping I could get some advice as I want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong or if I am, can rectify it as soon as possible!

1. Living in Japan for 6 years, working full time. Have been paying all taxes here on time through work. Will be here for the forseeable future.
2. Originally from UK, have had no income in the UK from work this entire time.

My current concern is:
I have a UK bank account where I have kept my prior UK savings. My mother is joint account holder. I recently received some monetary gifts, which she paid into the account. The amount in there is now around £10,000.

Should I be declaring this in any way here/there? Heading over to city hall tax desk to discuss?

I really do not want to be doing anything wrong!
Sorry I am finding it really hard to navigate tax issues between the two countries, so I would appreciate any advice!

For gifts, see this recent thread, which may answer your question on that. If you are liable to gift tax on overseas assets, there is a 1.1 million annual allowance on which you pay nothing.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1471

Since you have been here for six years you are treated as a permanent resident for tax purposes. This kicks in after spending five of the last ten years in Japan and means you are liable for tax on worldwide income, including savings interest. So you should be declaring whatever your share of interest in the joint account is, by converting the amount to yen on the day it was paid. Depending on exactly when you reached the five year mark, and interest was paid, it might be that 2020 is the first tax year you have to do this in. Which would mean your post is timely

One caveat is that if you have previously sent any cash over from the U.K. in years when you were a non-permanent tax resident (the first five years), the Japanese tax office would want its pound of flesh from any income you received in the U.K. that year, so would expect you to have declared any interest you earned in the year the remittance was made.

Thank you for clarification! That is helpful.
I've never remitted any money over from the UK to Japan, so that should keep things simpler. As it's my first time doing it I'll head over to my local office and talk about how to get it all in a row.

The amount I received as a gift is below that so that should also hopefully make it easy.

I arrived in August 2015 - would that mean I'm behind on declaring it or just in time?

Just in time, I would say. You would have become permanent for tax in August last year, so given the lack of remittance there is no need to worry about any interest paid before then.

In fact, as a salaried employee, not an enormous amount in your savings account and low interest rates, it may be that there is no need for you to do anything at all. There is a 200k annual ‘extra income’ allowance for salaried employees whose employers file taxes on their behalf, presumably to stop too many folk having to file tax returns for mercari sales and the like. Nobody on this forum has, that I have seen, a definitive answer to whether this can be applied to foreign interest, see page 11 section 1-5 1.(2), but I can’t see why not...

https://www.nta.go.jp/english/taxes/ind ... 020/01.pdf

Thank you ever so much for the clear explanations - I feel much more reassured! I had this horrible gut feeling that I'd missed the memo on something important I needed to be doing.

I think I will still need to head over to talk with them as my work/visa situation will be changing later this year, but I feel better understanding what you have explained.

Updating in case it helps anyone else!
The tax office said that at such a small amount, it was safe to consider it under the 20万 miscellaneous income amount so no need to declare