00:12
Hello, Len.
Hello, Asami.
We can do a hello, Len, again.
No, no, we're keeping this in now. I was judging my clap, so I'll have to fix it later because it's tiny.
That's fine.
Weak clap.
You know that when people clap here, it's like clapping, but like everybody just kind of like light touches, you know, their hands, and then like as a result, there's like some noise that comes from the audience.
Yeah, like a posh clap.
Yeah, it's basically a posh clap all the time here, though. Like, like whenever I was like part of the little ceremony type thing.
Do you just feel like those monkey toys with symbol in their hands?
I've never felt like that, but I guess I can probably try to imagine it.
In a sea of what? What is this monkey in a sea of?
No, no, in a sea of polite clappers. You are the one making the loud noise.
That's fair. Well, I mean, I feel that way with my voice most of the time. So I guess like, you know, it's not unfamiliar territory.
Anyway, we weren't going to talk about that. I could go on for how like people clap and how like, I don't understand why people clap the way they do. But yeah, we don't have to.
Yeah, let's not, Len.
Not this time.
Some other time.
All right, one minor sidebar. Can you snap?
Yes.
You can snap. I don't know if we should snap into the mic because that's probably what I've been told. Oh, there it is.
You were told that your snaps are loud?
No, I've been told I'm loud, but I was thinking of the snaps. I'm just saying like, it's actually less common than I think I had originally thought as like a kid, you know, that people could do it or that people did it.
And it is, it has surprised some of my classes in the past. And it surprised people I've run into here once in a while. And I'm just like, huh, it's really interesting. Nowadays, though, you got to be careful because I use my fingers for rock climbing and sometimes they're sore. And if I go to do a snap, I might hurt my finger because it's sore. I'm tired.
But anyway, what's this topic about? What are we talking about? What was our plan?
You were saying that you have a story about your, I don't know, some shenanigans that you did probably in like your kuyakusho maybe?
03:02
So it was, it was a bit of, that's right. It was a bit of a week. Not really a week. It was surprisingly fast. So this is going to be, I think, a positive story about a, you know, gaikokujin or a gaijin's experience with the sort of bureaucratic system in Japan.
Bless you.
Bless you.
Because it is, it is a struggle, I think, for many, especially the first time.
But let me tell you, it's a struggle for a Japanese person too.
Oh, okay, great. Okay, good, good. No, not good, but you know what I mean. Related, right? I don't think it's, it's perhaps a consequence of, you know, very big and complex systems, which are, you know, nations, right?
They're trying to hold just a countable, but a seemingly infinite number of people and numbers and things all at the same time.
Yes.
And it is amazing that we don't lose more things, right, than we probably do.
Yeah, that's true.
All that said, I think there are good ways to do them, and there are ways that seem to fail.
And there are definitely ones that perhaps fail, and for particular people, particular groups, even in Japan, right?
In my position, which is, you know, a white guy foreigner who has been studying Japanese enough to sort of like kind of do a little bit of both when I go through these processes.
Yes.
Really not so bad at this point.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and the process to say, get a new zairyu kado, or at least to submit the paperwork for it, is super, super quick. It was very, very easy.
Right. And also, this is probably like a second, if not third time around, you're doing this.
Yep. Yep. Which, to relate to everyone, though, all of these things only happen at most once a year. Everybody forgets how it's supposed to happen.
And then you have to go and figure it out.
Fair. Fair, fair.
The same goes for the other thing this week, which was doing a visit to the zemusho.
Zemusho?
Zemusho, right, so the tax stuff, right?
Mm-hmm.
So that's the other one.
Fun.
Fun. More fun than I have doing the IRS stuff, that's for sure.
Interesting.
It took less time, and basically there were enough people there to just walk me through it and put the numbers on the form and be like, yep, that's it. And then I was done.
Great.
And people were like, you know, that's great. Maybe they fund the appropriate tax resources here, or maybe people just feel compelled to sort of do more of that, but pretty smooth.
06:10
And I think they're making it smoother. People might have mixed opinions on this one, because I'm not sure about the use of the My Number card, right?
People might have some tension over this.
I don't know how well it has worked, because I've only had this My Number card for less than a year myself, and I have not had an income in Japan since I've had My Number card.
So I don't know what it's like, but the initial intention is to sort of streamline the whole tax system, welfare system, insurance, national healthcare insurance system, like all of that.
So good to hear that it seems like at least it's partially fulfilling the promise.
Yeah, and I think it's even faster if you have the card, because I don't have the card. So I'm going to get it, because there's currently something.
Are you not allowed to?
No, I could have gotten it, but it was not at the time that I arrived necessarily mandatory to do so. And so I said, that sounds like more paperwork. No. And I moved on.
I see.
But it's something that's useful now, right? I do believe is the case.
Might be worthwhile.
It definitely is, especially since a lot of insurances are flipping to being attached to it. So it's actually mandatory now, right? Like I'll have to do so. But that's like a next week or a few weeks something thing.
But something about that is that even in this interim, they have a pretty smooth system set up for doing it online via your smartphone, and just being like given a number to like kind of run through the account stuff. And you can then just use the same thing the next year as needed.
And so like that, even without the card, I was able to basically set all this stuff and be done in like under an hour.
That's wonderful.
Yeah, like, you know, and mind you, I have no idea where I got it.
And you don't have to pay for this service?
Nope. I mean, I had to, it turned out that because of some extra things, I had to pay about like 1200 yen or something, or, you know, 1,200 yen, like for, you know, the taxes, but like, no.
But like, it's not like TurboTax trying to charge you like $100 minimum and like a couple hundred more every time you ask for assistance.
Yes. So, um, let's, I'm going to quickly address that because the US also has a bunch of free file options, which is the way that I do them at this point.
09:05
But it is still challenging because there's not nearly as streamlined as what they have here.
There's a lot more happening, but it is relatively clear, like you can follow the flow of the instructions in those forms and be pretty certain things are working.
Still difficult, but there isn't any consultation.
There's no real like guidance outside of that.
You have to then pay people to get that guidance.
Whereas here it's like, no, the people that are part of the tax office, which is part of each like sort of, uh, uh, you know, uh, not prefecture, district.
Yeah. Like the, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yes.
So they're there and available and they're just moving around and they're helping people get through the process.
Right.
Smooth.
That's, that's wonderful.
I didn't know that.
I guess I never really earned enough money in Japan to need to do the tax refund.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Um, well with your, my number card, apparently I feel like I'm advertising for my number at this point.
Pay me.
Um, but the, the cards supposedly have been told by, by colleagues, you can just bring it to a, like a convenience store and you can have it print out all your paperwork for you.
And just like, it's, it's just kind of done, I guess.
And then you just like go submit it.
Like it's, and I'm like, okay, mind you, I don't have the card.
Haven't done it yet, but that's the vibe that I got.
Right.
Yeah.
I, I, it's, it's similar to how you do taxes traditionally if you are employed.
So this is different if you're not, if you're doing some freelance or self-employed work, but like basically you get a little, um, postcard from Zimsho or something saying, hey, this is how much you owe us this year or we owe you this year.
And then you just go to, uh, you know, appropriate agencies to, you know, get paid or pay the taxes.
And, um, like people don't really question about exactly how people arrived or how the government arrived to that number.
There's like enough trust that like, yeah, people who know what they're doing must have calculated this right kind of thing.
Yeah.
Which is nice and convenient.
Yeah.
Only if you do a self-employed situation or like mixed employment situation, then you need to like do a little bit yourself, um, to correctly account for that.
But yeah, for the most part, if you work for one company and it's like an accredited company, then you just get a card saying this is how much.
Yeah.
Uh, whereas, yeah, the, the whole tax culture in the U S and the whole chaos and stress that ensues, uh, was very new to me.
12:10
Um, starting with me earning a tiny amount of money and doing TAing as an undergrad, I think.
And cause there's like a lot of rules about F1 student making money.
Um, so there was that.
But then, and I really enjoyed the last four years of grad school because I basically said it's the same as last year.
It's the same as last year.
It's the same as last year.
And, um, convenient, convenient.
And I think I'm still slave to TurboTax because I have signed up for that ecosystem.
And, um, I'm just like too scared to mess this up, um, by doing it my own way because of this like F1 complexity that comes in it.
And the fact that I don't always have a fixed address in the U S and yeah.
Yeah.
But so like, I never, I don't know whatever amount that I get paid back, uh, every year.
I don't know if it's right.
I don't know if it's like the maximum amount of refund I can get.
Um, but I just came to just like, I'm just content.
Just accept it.
Yeah.
And I think especially in the situation with when it's simple, right?
The, the, you're doing one thing, this is it.
I pay $70 to TurboTax for convenience and, and like, I'm okay with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is, that's an, especially, I imagine we don't have to get into these details, but like, because of the situation you are in, you take that option because it is simple and because it helps you get through the complexity.
Whereas like, like if you don't, you're sitting with a whole bunch of uncertainty right on top of that.
Um, yeah.
Which is just unnecessary.
I mean, it's the people that are doing the work should be paid, but I believe that that pay should be sort of other sourced, not necessarily like more fees to private companies that can then just jack their prices up, you know?
Yeah.
But like, also, it's like such a bizarre concept, you know, like, why are you overtaxing us from our paycheck to begin with?
Like, why don't you just subtract the appropriate amount?
Yeah, I had this thought.
And also, and also, if we owe you and you want us to pay, then why do you make it this hard?
Okay, we're going to not deviate down the rabbit hole that my brain just went with that question.
Um, what we are going to say, what I'm going to say, what I'm going to say is that yes, I just had that exact same thought earlier today, because of course, it was a minor amount of money, right, that I calculated out because all the other types of taxes had been handled at the apparently appropriate amount beforehand.
15:15
Right, like by the time you get your paycheck.
Right, was something like additional that like wasn't on that paycheck, right?
Like the relevant income to Japan once.
And so I'm like, okay, fine.
And then it's done.
Now, in the States, my first thought was like, I think there might be and this is complete conjecture.
Do not take me at my word on this.
The first bit, if you over tax a little bit, you ensure that essentially the taxes are paid at the time.
And then everybody gets this little excited buff when they're like, we look, I have money coming back to me.
You know, at the April timing or whatever happens during that time.
There's another layer in here, which is why is it so complicated?
And the answer to that I will not go into.
I'm simply going to say billionaires, dot, dot, dot, lobbying, dot, dot, dot, and move on from the conversation.
It's true, like if billionaires actually paid the taxes that they owe in the same proportional way to us peasants.
And if there wasn't pressure to make it super complicated and annoying for everyone else so that it was easier to hide the stuff that you do.
If they did, if they did, right, like if like, I don't know how many billionaires are in America, like maybe like less than 100.
And then like, if they all did their taxes, honestly, none of us probably will need to pay taxes, honestly.
Yeah, it's actually insane.
There is a professor of public policy.
He's emeritus at this point, and he was at the University of California, Berkeley.
He also had served, this is coming from his website, as the secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.
He's super effective.
His name is Robert Reich, Reich, Reich.
I feel like my brain stopped being able to pronounce it the minute I read it out loud.
He's great.
He does a lot of discussion about exactly this.
He's on social media stuff if people wanted to check him out.
I think he released his entire course from University of California, Berkeley onto YouTube in his last semester that he taught it.
So I recommend this guy just to take a look at it.
You know, he does a good job just sitting there and being like, look at what is happening with all of the numbers.
Even if you want to take in the way that people are twisting it, here is the way that it runs.
This is what's happening.
And it's just really well constructed.
It's very well reasoned.
It's very well explained.
So I do recommend this.
He's got some books that I haven't read either.
But like, yeah, if you want a target, maybe the absolute insane scale of taxes that are being dodged by COFF, COFF, the current attempted oligarchy in the U.S., COFF.
18:13
Also, that's like far less people to chase after rather than like millions of regular Americans.
But they're so much harder to chase after because they have a million lawyers at their backs.
So there is a and if you if you defund the IRS or if you constantly cut their funding, they cannot spend money on that.
Like they cannot actually succeed.
And that's and that's why I hinted at the lobbying thing and the ability to put it gets dark from here.
Like, you know, this is all just sits in my head.
Let's not do that.
Let's not do this.
You had a great experience.
It's pretty cool.
It was smooth.
It was great.
I think it was it was the simplest.
Lots of people came to help you.
Yeah, it was so cool.
It was almost like, you know, getting to speak to humans is kind of helpful and useful.
Wonderful.
I'm very happy that happened to you.
That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening and find us on X at Ego de Science.
That is E I G O D E S C I E N C.
See you next time.
