外国人暮らしのQ&A「引っ越したが前に住んでいた市から住民税の請求が来た」

Q:

After living in Nagoya City for five years, I moved to a city in another prefecture on 7 January this year (2020), but I received an invoice for resident tax from the City of Nagoya after I moved. Why do I have to pay tax to the City of Nagoya when I'm not even living there?

A:

Resident Tax (jūminzei / 住民税) is a local tax that you pay to the municipality and prefecture in which you live (or are registered as a resident), and is levied separately from income tax (shotokuzei / 所得税), which is paid to the national government. The obligation to pay resident tax takes effect on 1 January every year, and one pays the resident tax applicable to one's income for the previous year to the municipality in which you were living on that date.

For example, the resident tax on your income for the period from January to December 2018 is deducted from your monthly salary from June 2019 to May 2020.

For those who pay resident tax in person directly, your resident tax will be payable in four instalments, in June, August, and October of 2019, and January of 2020.

If you had been having your resident tax deducted from your salary, you would have been paying resident tax on your income for 2018 to the City of Nagoya from June 2019 to May 2020. Therefore, the payments due for January to May of this year must still be made to the City of Nagoya, even if you have moved to another municipality.

Also, as you were still a resident of Nagoya on 1 January of this year, you will also be required to pay the year's worth of resident tax payable from June 2019 to May 2020 to the City of Nagoya, so you will probably receive notices requesting payment. You will be paying resident tax to the municipality in which you now live from 2021.

For more information on how resident tax is applied and paid, please consult the section of your municipal office in charge of tax.

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