RetireJapan

Hello everyone. I’m a first timer posting my predicament and was directed to this forum by a friend recently(so please bear with me), but a bit about me: I’ve been living in Japan for 17+ years, I got my permanent residency about 3 years ago. I’m teaching as a part timer but on the side I’ve done freelance design/art stuff. I decided to go legit as a freelance artist last November and applied for 個人事業開業届. Now that tax filing time is fast approaching, I would like to get input/feedback from everyone in this forum as far what to do, what to expect, which additional documents I need, and do’s and don’ts, as I am a newbie in this predicament; filing is very easy doing the part time teaching only, but with sole proprietorship added on, it’s uncharted territory for me and I want to ensure that I cover all my legal bases.

So far, under the sole proprietorship status, I had one client, and I got the receipts and invoices sorted and all that, and I have the receipts of my main expenses (software, and other stuff I bought for the laptop). I was told I can write off my laptop as an expense (though I bought it 4 years ago). I looked into using freee (フリー) to help me with the sole proprietorship application, and according to the website I can write off certain utilities and use a certain portion of my living area as my “office” and write that off too, but I haven’t gone through that part yet as I am a bit unsure about it.

Timing has not been my greatest suit, especially as again, tax filing time is fast approaching and I’m posting this now. Nonetheless, any help is still very much appreciated and thank you in advance. If you could also direct me to another post or other posts discussing this very topic, that'd be much appreciated as well.

When I was in your position (almost 20 years ago), I discovered that the people at the tax office are very helpful for things like this.

You've received the fat envelope full of forms from the tax office, right? Fill out the forms that you think are the ones you need, and take them in to the tax office in person. They'll tell you where you've gone wrong and what is missing. Go home and fix or fill out whatever is needed, then take them back to the tax office another day. Rinse and repeat until you get it right. You'll not get in any kind of trouble for not being right first time; just be prepared for multiple trips to the tax office until you do get it right.

"Sole proprietor" - 個人事業 - simply means you are not incorporated, so although you filed a 個人事業開業届 I do not think this makes any difference to your formal status. I can't remember ever filing such a thing. So I do not think you will have any problem filing a return.

Is your part-time teaching a "proper salaried" job? (Of which I have zero experience) At one stage I was working as a freelance translator, for a number of agencies, while starting my own online retail operation. I simply listed the income from translation, appended the 源泉徴収税 forms they sent me, added the puzzle sales figures and filed. (All went well until a few months ago, when they decided to investigate me, and claim that I have not been doing "proper" double-entry bookkeeping, and removed 50man allowance for three years... but that's a separate story.)

About your laptop: normally for "big" items you have to write them down as capital depreciation each year. I doubt if you can write down the whole value of the laptop in one year - but you could just ask the tax office about it; they are generally very helpful.

Here's a "hot tip". Today I phoned the tax office, hoping to make an appointment to sort out our accounting problem with the person responsible. (Didn't happen; just got generic advice...)

Anyway, from Feb 16 you can make appointments; until then, just go to the tax office. (Of course this is our tax office, Sano, Tochigi; yours may be different) When I got there almost no-one was to be seen, and someone immediately came and gave me advice. So you really should get cracking, and start asking your questions in the next week or so. Gradually things will get busier, and if you go on March 13th you will be faced with a corridor crammed with people holding carrier bags stuffed with receipts; this will not be so pleasant.

Thank you all for the feedback. It very much helped put me at ease, but also it gave me a good idea of what I should do. I'll give the tax office a call today or tomorrow to set up an appointment for next Tuesday and bring all the documents with me. Here's hoping it'll all get sorted. In the meantime, I will keep you posted on my situation.