RetireJapan

Hi guys,
What experience do you have using Furusato Noze? My wife and I are in the process of setting this up through Rakuten. Do you use Rakuten? I wonder if there is much difference between providers? Any recommendations or tips? At the moment we have rice and beer and the shopping list...

Tried it once, decided it wasn't worth the hassle: http://www.retirejapan.info/blog/catego ... sato-nozei

If there's something on there you would regularly buy, then it's good, especially if you use rakuten and have a rakuten credit card, as you can wrack up points with it too, if your just doing it to get goodies you usually wouldn't buy, then it's questionable .. but you will still be getting points on your credit card for paying taxes (plus a little extra).

Just remember not to go over your soft cap though, otherwise you're throwing money away ... or being altruistic.

So long as you stay under your cap, it is definitely worth it - it is basically free stuff in exchange for early tax payments. My wife and I use Rakuten and we wait for one of their point campaigns to come up before placing orders. During the campaigns, if you can arrange to buy from 10 different 'towns' and jump through some other hoops you can get up to 10-12% of the value of the entire payment back in Rakuten points in addition to any credit card points - it is pretty sweet. Plus Rakuten is really easy to use.

My other top-secret tip is that the best return on value that I have found is to buy HIS coupons here: https://furunavi.jp/search.aspx?keyword ... t_toggle=1

This works out to about 50% return on value and, additionally, you get 1 or 2% as additional Amazon points when you purchase. Moreover, HIS sucks a a travel agency but you can take the coupons to one of those shady discount ticket places and they will give you 95 yen on the dollar if you prefer cash.

This sounds interesting. I have a Rakuten credit card and would like to make use of this.

Do I need to do anything specific in order to register to pay into Furusato Noze? Or do I just keep the receipts and give them to my HR to file my tax returns?

I don't quite understand the link between the purchases from Furusato and HIS.

Is the HIS voucher purchases through the points accumulated on the Rakuten credit card?

Sorry if my questions don't make sense.

OkiBum wrote: ↑Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:01 am This sounds interesting. I have a Rakuten credit card and would like to make use of this.

Do I need to do anything specific in order to register to pay into Furusato Noze? Or do I just keep the receipts and give them to my HR to file my tax returns?

I don't quite understand the link between the purchases from Furusato and HIS.

Is the HIS voucher purchases through the points accumulated on the Rakuten credit card?

Sorry if my questions don't make sense.

It depends whether you file you taxes separately or not. If not then there is the 'one-stop' filing. I am not sure how it works but I think it all gets done automatically. If you are like me and file separately, then you need to apply the receipts that you get to your kakutei shinkoku (there is a section for furusatonozei). I believe there is info in English on the net if you search - it really is dead easy - it is basically the same as shopping on Rakuten.

eyeswideshut, thanks for the good tips, I did furusato nozei via Rakuten fur the first time last year, but I rushed to get it in a few days before the deadline so was unable to take advantage of the points.

Another tip, in case anyone is not aware, but to be eligible for the one-stop tax filing you need to limit yourself to five cities (jijitais), but you can order as many things as you want from within those five. Many cities offer a wide array of goods, so it's possible to get a lot of different things (ie.not just five) and still have the benefit of the one-stop.

One mendokusai thing to note however, which I found out the hard way, is that even if you sign up for the one-stop filling to make things easier, if you have any other tax claims (eg. medical bills) it renders the one-stop null and void, and you need to then go to the tax office in person to get it sorted. In my case, we had a baby the same year, so I was claiming some money back for that. Ended up having to take a half day off of week to take care of it, but the tax office people were very helpful.

Apart from the small hassles, it's basically free stuff in exchange for deferring your cash-in-hand for a while.