Question Late/Missed City Tax Payments, reason enough to be denied visa renewal?

Hi everyone.

I've recently changed jobs from a more Eikaiwa setup into my first venture as an ALT and my company want to renew my working visa now despite it expiring in December of next year. I'm also now aware that visa lengths depend on your type of teaching job which I hadn't heard before somehow.

Anyway my question is...I've missed a few City Tax payments. I'm not being chased with court letters and dates, no red letter scary warning etc, just a few missed payments that I have been paying back and I've written them letters requesting to know how much to pay so as to make plans to pay back. It's not much really, but I have missed some, I've needed to divert money into unexpected things but I'm on top of everything now...life happens.

So, could this be enough to be refused a visa extension on its own? I'm sure my earnings would be approved as a factor, my qualifications and work history are good and nothing else has much changed since my application to come to Japan, only now since I've been here into my 4th year now, I'm looking at having to renew my visa with being a little behind in City Tax payments.

Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks.

Hard to say, but I guess if you have reached some understanding with your local tax office and started paying back the outstanding tax instalments, there shouldn't be any red flags with immigration.

thomas said:

Hard to say, but I guess if you have reached some understanding with your local tax office and started paying back the outstanding tax instalments, there shouldn't be any red flags with immigration.

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Thanks. Yes I wrote to them explaining my issues in a very polite way, attempting to have them understand I don't want to be delinquent and in arrears with payments. They replied seeming very appreciative that I wasn't burying my head in the sand about it all.

So, a lot of my missed payments date back to 2016-17 actually going into 2018. I was given really bad advice and naïvely, accepted. City Tax etc paid but Pension, missed payment which I've since paid a colossal amount of money in back payments to catch up.

Does anyone know if there's a percentage of acceptance threshold that puts applicants in the clear? For example 80% of mandatory payments met but no red letter reminders etc?

Does the immigration team want to see 100%?

jack6251 said:

So, a lot of my missed payments date back to 2016-17 actually going into 2018. I was given really bad advice and naïvely, accepted. City Tax etc paid but Pension, missed payment which I've since paid a colossal amount of money in back payments to catch up.

Does anyone know if there's a percentage of acceptance threshold that puts applicants in the clear? For example 80% of mandatory payments met but no red letter reminders etc?

Does the immigration team want to see 100%?

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My guess would be that most applicants have a 100 percent record, and immigration will look at people without a perfect record case by case. Demonstrating sincerity is looked on favourably and you've certainly done that.

However, there is probably nobody outside Japanese immigration who could give you clear criteria for who will be accepted, and Japanese decision making is opaque at the best of times, so all we can do is speculate.

Is there any evidence that Japan Immigration has access to local tax records like this?

Another thought that may or may not be helpful is that you are basically a minnow being buffeted around by much greater forces beyond your control. Immigration issues are to some extent a political decision. It could be that one of the big chiefs of Keidanren expressed concern to the head of immigration over an agreeable dinner in Aoyama that companies were losing essential foreign workers due to no new ones coming into Japan because of Covid restrictions, and the head of immigration promised to make things a bit easier for existing immigrants, which would work in your favour. Alternatively, the person dealing with your application may be suffering from hayfever and have recently been ditched by his girlfriend in favour of a foreign barbarian, which wouldn't help your case!

The serious point I am trying to make is that there may well be some arbitrariness in the decision and it may be best not to take the decision too personally.

mdchachi - I believe that NI and pension payments are requirements for PR, so immigration must have access to information on payments, either through the local ward office or through My Number.

Lothor said:

Another thought that may or may not be helpful is that you are basically a minnow being buffeted around by much greater forces beyond your control. Immigration issues are to some extent a political decision. It could be that one of the big chiefs of Keidanren expressed concern to the head of immigration over an agreeable dinner in Aoyama that companies were losing essential foreign workers due to no new ones coming into Japan because of Covid restrictions, and the head of immigration promised to make things a bit easier for existing immigrants, which would work in your favour. Alternatively, the person dealing with your application may be suffering from hayfever and have recently been ditched by his girlfriend in favour of a foreign barbarian, which wouldn't help your case!

The serious point I am trying to make is that there may well be some arbitrariness in the decision and it may be best not to take the decision too personally.

mdchachi - I believe that NI and pension payments are requirements for PR, so immigration must have access to information on payments, either through the local ward office or through My Number.

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So, let's say I clear all outstanding monies owed in the next few days, which is my plan... that should give me a clean bill of health on the system wouldn't it?

jack6251 said:

So, let's say I clear all outstanding monies owed in the next few days, which is my plan... that should give me a clean bill of health on the system wouldn't it?

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As long as they send the fax with zero monies due in time.

mdchachi said:

As long as they send the fax with zero monies due in time.

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Fax...not sure if you're joking since I know so many places in Japan still fax things, me for example. I started as an ALT last week and told the school I must fax my timesheet at the end of each month. "FAX!?!?" they said and laughed about it.

Anyway my thoughts are, I'm hoping once I make payments this week it'll go onto a computer system almost instantly that can be accessed by whichever other departments.

jack6251 said:

Fax...not sure if you're joking since I know so many places in Japan still fax things, me for example. I started as an ALT last week and told the school I must fax my timesheet at the end of each month. "FAX!?!?" they said and laughed about it.

Anyway my thoughts are, I'm hoping once I make payments this week it'll go onto a computer system almost instantly that can be accessed by whichever other departments.

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Yes, just joking. The fact that faxing is still a thing in Japan is funny.