Furusato Nouzei

[Akatani]

Is anybody doing this? It looks like a good deal - paying your taxes to a different town as a donation and getting stuff back like food, wine, ski lift tickets in return.
I need to figure out which taxes can be deducted using this. My parents sent money to my kids over the max gift amount so we will be taxed on that, but it would be good to get a few cases of fruit, seafood etc in the deal.

[RetireJapan]

Hi Akatani

I wrote about my experience here: http://www.retirejapan.info/blog/furusato-nozei

TL:DR probably won't bother in the future, but it can be good if you take the time to find something you want/need.

[Tony]

Even if you are just buying perishables, is it not a good deal anyway? You can get a lot of fruit or vegetables, or a lot of rice, for a grand total of 2000yen, but you also get the benefits of credit card rewards by doing it. It seems to me that if there is something there that you are likely to buy anyway (and I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone that needed nothing out of everything that was offered), doing it through furusato nouzei is a sure win.

You just have to make sure you never go over your soft limit.

[Akatani]

great info guys. I will definitely do it this year.

[sutebayashi]

So where are you all donating so far this year? I need to be on my game and regularly donate through the year (and keep the freezer and chiller full of goodies).

So far we have donated to 山口県山口市 via furunavi.jp - 30,000 yen donation and expecting 60 kgs of rice delivered in three batches in return.

Do share your recommendations for any delectable goodies that are good ‘value for donation’!
I hope to enjoy some fine meats this year indeed. I am a little picky about my alcohol so I will probably stick to foods with furusato nozei.

[RetireJapan]

Decided not to bother! Tried it last year, but I think I'm too lazy to do the paperwork

[Tony]

Decided not to bother! Tried it last year, but I think I'm too lazy to do the paperwork

Too lazy to fill in a few places on a page and send it back in the pre-addressed envelope? That certainly is taking laziness to new heights!

With the one-stop filing system for furusato nouzei, and the fact that donating through rakuten can give me 5% points on the donations, it just seems like too good an opportunity to give up. Paying 2000 yen for goodies, and then getting 5% points for paying my taxes, I'm very much down for it.

I haven't worked out where I'll donate to this year, last year I got 2 airweave pillows from Nagoya, and some passion fruit from Kagoshima. The pillows took up most of the donation, seeing as I don't need more pillows this year, I should be able to get a nice range of goodies (as long as I stay under 8 different places of donation so I can still use the one-stop program)

[RetireJapan]

I think the main thing for me is that it felt like I was doing additional shopping instead of buying things I would buy normally. There's nothing I particularly need/want so it just feels like a bit of a waste of time.

If you like it though, take advantage before they scrap the system!

[Tony]

I think the main thing for me is that it felt like I was doing additional shopping instead of buying things I would buy normally. There's nothing I particularly need/want so it just feels like a bit of a waste of time.

If you like it though, take advantage before they scrap the system!

I definitely understand that feeling. I've been very particular about what I'm ordering. If we ate rice at home, that would be an easy choice straight up, but I don't want to order things just for the fun of it. We needed new pillows, and could get some good quality ones from the system last year, so that was great. This year we don't need anything like that, so no 1 big item is going to eat up a lot of that donation, so finding what we really need takes time in itself.

[Akatani]

How do you figure out your limit? My Japanese brother in law looked into it for me and told me my salary was too low!