Why wasn’t I deducted?
Ashley* has worked in Japan for 5 years and changed jobs last May. She started receiving her monthly payslips all in Japanese, which was a bit disappointing but trusted that her company would deduct everything they needed to by law and didn’t think much of it. That was until about 6 months into her contract; she found out that her resident taxes had not, in fact, been being deducted at all. Every place she had worked at before had done so automatically, which gave her a false sense of security about her new job. In the end, she had to arrange to pay all of her missed payments up to that point, as well as set up future payments on her own.
Why was such a normal practice of deducting resident taxes not done for this member? In this case, her contract was set to expire in April and legally, companies don’t need to withhold deductions unless your contract will continue past May the following year. There are also other exceptions such as:
- The salary is too low
- The employee is on maternity or child-raising leave
- Only two or fewer employees at the company whose residence tax is deducted
- The salary payment schedule is irregular
- The employee is self-employed
Not sure whether you’re being deducted or not? Ask your employer! Asking small questions like this will show that you pay attention to important documents.
We recognize that each workplace is unique and may have different agreements in place. If you have questions about your payslip, ask for a consultation by filling out the form here: https://generalunion.org/consult/
*Name has been changed to protect privacy