List: Japanese tax years whose refunds you can claim (in year 2024)
You can claim income tax refunds for salaries you had received in Japan for past 5 years.
This is the list of years whose tax refunds Japanese tax office accepts:
| Year | Tax refunds are accepted | Gengonen (元号年) |
| 2024 | from 2019 to 2023 | 平成31年=令和元年, 令和2年, 令和3年, 令和4年, 令和5年 |
[Note] Gengonen means Japanese traditional year. Year 2019 has double Gengonen, 平成31年 and 令和元年.
You can calculate income tax refunds from Gensen Choshu-hyo
Employers in Japan issue all employees Gensen Choshu-hyo (源泉徴収票) for each year.
Gensen Choshu-hyo show the amounts of annual salary, withheld social security payments, and income tax. On them you can see Gengonen (元号年), Japanese traditional year. You can calculate possible tax refunds from Gensen Choshu-hyo and you can claim refunds back to the past 5 “Gengonen” if you find there were(*). So please keep a copy of received Gensen Choshu-hyo (**).
(*)However, it is possible that employers have already paid back possible tax refunds as “Nenmatsu Chosei (年末調整)” while you had been employed. In this case the tax office will only reject your tax refund claims because you were already paid them back by employers. For “Nenmetsu Chosei”, please see this article of our blog.
(**)Although you don’t have to submit Gensen Choshu-hyo for claiming income tax refunds, you have to keep their copy for the purpose of calculating them. For details please see this article of our blog.
If you are now out of Japan then you can claim your past income tax refunds using a tax agent (納税管理人) in Japan, whom you can desginate in Japan in order to execute your tax refunds.
YouAT LLC gives you services for Japanese pension and tax refunds
We YouAT LLC has more than 10 year’s history to support non-Japanese employees’ “Lump-sum Withdrawal Payments”, “Old Age Pension”, and income tax refunds.
We have staff of Labor and Social Security Attorney, Administrative Scrivener, and Tax Accountant.
Please feel free to contact us for Japanese Pension and Tax Refunds!
YouAT LLC website — > www.youat-jp.com/
Email –> info@youat-jp.com