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Don't pay MEXT flight taxes

FormerMEXTsch

Registered
10 Feb 2021
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I had a MEXT scholarship from 2008-2014. I was told like everyone else that I had to pay the taxes for the flights. Like everyone else I found this insulting, if you took someone out for dinner would you expect them to pay taxes? But like everyone else I felt I should just go along with it since the overall value of the scholarship is much greater than the taxes. I given my flight ticket from the UK to Japan from a company called Top Tour. The cost of the flight was around 3.5 thousand pounds. Easily more than 3 times the typical price of an economy ticket to Japan at that time. Obviously, Top Tour and Japan Airlines have a corrupt deal in place to pay inflated prices for these tickets. The inflated costs meant that I had to pay around 30000 yen in taxes. Some other students from countries with several connecting flights had even higher costs. After a few weeks in Japan all the Mext students at my university were required to pay their flight taxes. We had a deadline of something like 12pm one Friday to pay. I had a problem; I literally did not have enough money to pay this. I decided that I would just not pay by the deadline and by the time they caught up to me I would have my next month's scholarship money and pay it. A few weeks and then months and then years went past and nobody asked me to pay the taxes, so I didn't. Obviously when I got my return ticket from Japan and they asked me to pay the taxes I just didn't. What were they going to do? Extradite me?

I have a suspicion that MEXT students have no legal obligation to pay these stupid taxes and if you don't pay them there will be absolutely no consequences. At least that is what happened in my experience.
 
I had a MEXT scholarship from 2008-2014. I was told like everyone else that I had to pay the taxes for the flights. Like everyone else I found this insulting, if you took someone out for dinner would you expect them to pay taxes? But like everyone else I felt I should just go along with it since the overall value of the scholarship is much greater than the taxes. I given my flight ticket from the UK to Japan from a company called Top Tour. The cost of the flight was around 3.5 thousand pounds. Easily more than 3 times the typical price of an economy ticket to Japan at that time. Obviously, Top Tour and Japan Airlines have a corrupt deal in place to pay inflated prices for these tickets. The inflated costs meant that I had to pay around 30000 yen in taxes. Some other students from countries with several connecting flights had even higher costs. After a few weeks in Japan all the Mext students at my university were required to pay their flight taxes. We had a deadline of something like 12pm one Friday to pay. I had a problem; I literally did not have enough money to pay this. I decided that I would just not pay by the deadline and by the time they caught up to me I would have my next month's scholarship money and pay it. A few weeks and then months and then years went past and nobody asked me to pay the taxes, so I didn't. Obviously when I got my return ticket from Japan and they asked me to pay the taxes I just didn't. What were they going to do? Extradite me?

I have a suspicion that MEXT students have no legal obligation to pay these stupid taxes and if you don't pay them there will be absolutely no consequences. At least that is what happened in my experience.
Hi FormerMEXTsch I would like to do the same if I pass second screening for April 2022.
 
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