Hello,
I am a German citizen and plan to get the PR in Japan and spend every year some month there while continuing working for a German company the entire year. Obviously I want to avoid paying taxes in Germany PLUS taxes in Japan (income + resident taxes).
I know that the question of tax resident and tax non-resident are independently from the visa status (e.g. PR). I I am non-resident, I do not need to pay taxes in Japan.
But my Japanese tax counsil said to me that Japan will very likely see me as a tax resident (and not as a non-resident) when I regulary come to Japan, maybe even own a house here. And as a tax resident, my global income would be taxable by Japan. So I would need to pay resident and income tax in Japan additionally to the income taxes in Germany.
I understand that this is the case, where the DTA would come into effect. But my tax counsil said that in reality, even if I am right by law that I don't need to pay the taxes, the Japanese authorities likely do not recognize as long as I have an address in Japan. So I am very confused about this. It seems to be that the DTA would be virtually useless because the Japanese authorities might not understand it (so one would need to go to a potentially year-long process).
Has anyone of you experience in making use of the DTA as a Japanese tax resident? How to avoid confusion here with the authorities?
by OkSatisfaction8026