RetireJapan

This scheme is for self-employed or small business owners. I'm taking a second look at it: http://www.smrj.go.jp/tkyosai/index.html

You can basically pay from 5,000-200,000 yen a month into this (completely tax-deductible) up to a total of 8 million yen saved, and then get the cash back in full after paying in for at least 40 months. You can also borrow against the saved funds (up to 8x the amount?).

Cashing out is treated as income, so I am not sure if there is a tax advantage? You save on income tax as you pay in, but get hit with a large bill the year you cash out? Unless you have expenses to shut down the business? Or you could cash out in a year you make a loss?

What do you think? Anyone using this?

Ran this by our accountant and he was pretty adamant it wasn't worth doing it for us. The main problem is that for sole proprietors cashing out is treated as income, so probably incurs more tax than was saved originally. For companies the tax treatment is better so might make more sense...