外国人暮らしのQ＆A「配達員として働いているが、個人事業と言われた。税金の申告はどうなる？」

Q:

I work as a food delivery courier. It seems that under the contract with the food delivery company, I'm considered a self-employed sole proprietor. If that's the case, do I have to declare my income for tax?

A:

If you are working as a sole proprietor (kojin jigyō-sha / 個人事業者), you are required to declare your tax yourself. You will need to give a declaration for your income for the year from January to December.

Generally, you subtract the necessary expenses incurred as part of your work from your total earnings (shūnyū / 収入), and what's left will be your income (shotoku / 所得). Subtract any applicable exemptions or deductions (shotoku kōjo / 所得控除) from your income to get your taxable income (kazei shotoku / 課税所得). If you don't actually have any taxable income, you don't need to make a declaration of your income tax.

In addition to the basic deduction of 480,000 Yen, deductions for such items as social insurance payments, spouse, dependents, and medical treatment expenses might also be applied by subtracting them from your income to calculate your taxable income. Your taxable income is used to calculate your income tax (shotoku-zei / 所得税), but additional tax credit (zeigaku kōjo / 税額控除) might also be deducted from your income tax amount. For more information on submitting a final income tax declaration (kakutei shinkoku / 確定申告), we advise you to consult a tax office (zeimusho / 税務署).

Resident tax (jūminzei / 住民税), which is comprised of municipal resident tax and prefectural resident tax, does not require you to submit a declaration of your income if you have already submitted a final income tax declaration. Your resident tax will be calculated based on the content of your final income tax declaration.

It should be noted that even if you are not required to submit a final income tax declaration, your amount of taxable income for resident tax may still be calculated, so please consult your municipal office. In addition, in the case of foreign residents, you may be required to provide a certificate of taxation (kazei shōmeisho / 課税証明書) or certificate of tax payment (nōzei shōmeisho / 納税証明書) when submitting applications for immigration-related procedures; so even if you are not subjected to resident tax, you should still submit a declaration for resident tax.

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