Income Tax Report, in Japanese!

These are the papers we first thought I needed.

Today I went to the tax office to get help with my income tax report. It has to be filed before the 15th of March, and I will be in Switzerland more or less until then (starting tomorrow).

Last year and two years ago, I went there and asked how to fill out the forms to show that I had received some income from Sweden that should be taxed here in Japan. They were very kind and helpful but since no one had ever had to deal with anything like this before, we ended up having to "go ask my superior" several times, and in the end five or six people were hovering around me trying to figure out what to do.

This year I had no income from Sweden, but I had my income from my job at the university, which the university files all the paperwork and pays all the taxes automatically for, but also some income from doing magic shows at kindergartens etc. Last year I had a whopping 6,000 yen income from magic shows, that I got taxed a few hundred yens for. This year I had more income since the kindergartens have started paying me five or six thousand yens per show instead of one thousand. Despite me telling them I will do it for free for them (which means less hassle with visas and taxes; especially the visa stuff is a real pain).

Anyway, this year a man at the reception desk of the tax office recognized me and said: "Weren't you on TV last year? Very late at night... Hanatare NACS?" So he had seen me do magic on TV and remembered (and recognized!) me despite the fact that I wore a blond wig and a fake nose when on TV (to "look like a foreigner").

This is the book that tells me I do not have to do anything at all!

My assigned helper had me fill out some papers specifying magic shows, the pay for them, and deductions I would like to make. My spendings for magic shows are things like 200 yen subway fare or buying balloons to break in the show for 105 yen, so getting a few percents of that back on my taxes is not worth the time it takes to write it down. I said I did not really want to make any deductions to save time. After quite a while of filling out papers, he said: "So your total income from this is only 52,000 yen? [yes] If you earn less than 200,000 yen from business on the side but have paid taxes for your main job, you do not have to report it."

In the end, it turned out that I did not have to do anything at all this year. Not even logging in to some system and clicking "OK, all the reported numbers are correct". Nothing. Very surprising. Good news that I did not have to fill out the rest of the papers, but it would have been even better if this had been known earlier... This was probably my fault, since the instruction manual on how to fill out your income tax papers clarified this rule on page 36. 40 pages of bureaucratic Japanese is not something I can manage to read myself though. Which of course is still my fault, since I should have studied Japanese and then have been able to read this kind of stuff too.

Magic and sweet beans

Food boiled in Coca Cola

Today I had a very busy day. I had to work, of course, and I spent my lunch break at the local tax office. There I watched as several people tried to figure out how to fill out various forms for me after having earned some money in Sweden that should be taxed in Japan. They were very helpful, and seemed very happy when I told them that I had done something similar once before, so they could probably see in the system what had happened last time.

I worked some more, and then went off to teach Swedish to a very nice Japanese family in the evening. They lived a few years in Stockholm and speak Swedish quite well. Sometimes we meet so they can practice speaking and hopefully not forget all the Swedish they learned.

After that, I ran off to our magic bar for the monthly magic class. People who know little or no magic can come the third Thursday every month and learn interesting magic tricks. Today there were 6 new people there. After that, the bar got unexpectedly busy too, with groups of 4, 4, 5, and 4 guests showing up more or less at the same time. So I decided to help out and do some magic today too. There were some cute girls that were very impressed (one of them remembered my name from a previous visit) and even wanted to take pictures together with all the magicians, and lots of other nice customers.

At around 00:30, I left to go find something to eat. I had not time for lunch and no time for dinner until that time, which meant I was quite hungry.

Sweet bean paste, in packages with dragons (it is the year of the dragon now)

Some of the new guests of the magic class gave me two packs of sweet bean paste (for unclear reasons) before they left, though. So I ate one pack just to keep up the blood sugar enough to stay standing while doing magic for all the guests that showed up...

When I finally got dinner, a long boiling experiment that they had been doing in Bottom Cafe (where I ate) was just finished (at around 2:00), so I got a bowl of pork/egg/leek boiled in Coca Cola to try too. This was very nice. There were also some cute customers sitting at the counter, one of whom asked to see some magic tricks. She seemed impressed.