Japanese taxes

Japan has roughly two types of taxes which are national tax imposed by the government and local tax imposed by a municipality.

In addition, there is a very unique tax collection system of municipality, which is called Hoteigaizei “法定外税”. This literally means special taxes for special purpose. This tax is imposed based on unique ordinance of municipality except for tax items regulated by the local tax law, which becomes fiscal resources of local public organization along with local taxes.

Local taxes tend to have more variety than national taxes. This is because local taxes also have two types which is divided into a type of tax imposed by city level municipality and a type of tax imposed by prefecture level municipality.

National Taxes

National tax is a tax imposed by the state itself. This is distinguished from local tax whose sovereign of taxation is a municipality. A final tax payer pays taxes to a tax payment obligor and collected taxes is installed into the national treasury.

National tax has a direct tax (income tax, corporate tax, inheritance tax ) and an indirect tax (cigarette tax, consumption tax, liquor tax). National tax tends to have more variety of an indirect tax than a direct tax.

A direct tax is the one which is paid in your name directly to the authority and an indirect tax is the one which is paid by someone in place of a tax payer.

For example, consumption tax is the one imposed to consumers but tax payment is done by stores that collect money including tax rate when you buy something there.

Direct taxes

Exit tax

This is a tax imposed to capital gains of a financial assets that is valued at 100 million yen ( a million US dollar)




Before this tax was established, the right of taxation to profits generated by the sale of capital stock was basically entitled by the country where a tax payer lives. For that reason, there are so many cases that a person who had a lot of stocks escaped to tax free countries like Singapore and Hong Kong that don’t impose taxes to a big capital gains and avoided tax payment. So this tax is to prevent people from such a taxation avoidance scheme.

Land value tax

This tax is imposed to a person or a company that has land property.

Donation tax

Except for inheritance tax, “donation” here indicates voluntary gift as a part of assets possessed by someone else.

This tax is imposed to such a voluntary gift.

Inheritance tax

This tax is imposed to transfer of assets cased by death

local corporate tax

This tax is imposed to a corporation based on the local corporate tax law.

In present corporate tax law, a corporation pays a part of corporate tax to a municipality.

The number of corporations tend to be biased depending on the municipality so revenue of individual municipalities are different each other.

In order to reduce dispersion of revenue of those municipalities, the government made a system that a corporation pays a tax to the state as local corporate tax first and the government evenly divide revenue to municipalities as local distribution tax.

Corporate income tax

This tax is imposed to profit of a corporation.

Reconstruction special income tax

This tax is imposed to personal income apart from income tax in order to reconstruct from the Great East Earthquake from 2013 to 2037

Income tax

This tax is imposed to personal annual income

Indirect taxes

Consumption tax

This tax is imposed to transaction through selling products and providing services.

liquor tax

This tax is imposed when liquor is shipped from a brewer

Cigarette tax

This tax is imposed when liquor is shipped from a manufacture

Cigarette special tax

This tax is imposed to a cigarette manufacture. This tax has been established due to reducing burden generated when deficits of national forest management and Japanese National Railway Settlement Corp were inherited to a general account

Volatile gas tax

This tax is imposed when volatile gas like gasoline is shipped from a manufacture.

Local volatile gas tax

This tax is imposed to gasoline for the purpose of assigning financial resources to municipalities. This is one of local transfer tax.

Petroleum gas tax

This tax is imposed when gassing up a car

Petroleum and coal tax

This tax is imposed to shipment and importation of crude petroleum, natural gas and coal.

Motor vehicle weight tax

This tax is imposed to vehicle weight when submitting notification of automobile inspection to the authority.

Aircraft fuel tax

This tax is imposed to aircraft fuel. Tax payers are owner and user of aircraft.

Promotion of power-resources development tax

This tax is imposed to a sales of electricity by general electricity utility.

Tonnage tax

This tax is imposed to net tonnage of arriving foreign trader ship in an open port .

Special Tonnage tax

This is a local transfer tax imposed to arriving foreign trader ship in a open port.

Custom tax

This is imposed to importation freights

Stamp tax

This is imposed to creating a certain document corresponding to taxation article like a receipt after trading.

Registration license tax

This tax is imposed to registration of a real estate and a company

Taxes involved with local transfer tax

Local transfer tax is transferred to municipalities as a part of municipal treasuries.

Taxes which is assigned to municipal treasuries are the following taxes.

• Local volatile gas tax
• Petroleum and coal tax
• Motor vehicle weight tax
• Aircraft fuel tax
• Special tonnage tax

Local taxes

“Local tax” is the one imposed by local municipalities. “Local tax” is divided into prefectural tax and city tax.

Local tax is for supplement of revenue source for municipalities, which is entitled to impose taxes by the government. Both prefectural tax and city tax also have direct taxes and indirect taxes. Compared to national tax, prefectural tax and city tax tend to have more direct tax.

Direct tax

Prefectural locality tax

This is imposed to people living in and companies located in prefectures except for Tokyo.

Metropolitan tax




This is imposed to people living in and companies located in Tokyo.

Business tax

This is imposed to business run by a person or a corporation. This is sometimes called like corporate business tax or personal business tax/

Real estate acquisition tax

This tax is imposed to real estate acquisition.

Automobile acquisition tax

This tax is imposed to automobile acquisition

Automobile tax

This tax is imposed to a owner of a automobile

Mine lot tax

This is imposed to a holder of mining right

Hunting tax

This is imposed when processing hunting registration

Fixed property tax

This is imposed to fixed property assets

Fixed property tax (special case)

This is imposed to a fixed property exceeding a certain amount of value in possessed all property assets

Light vehicle tax

This is imposed to a owner of a light vehicle

Mine products tax

This is imposed to a miner who possess mineral resources

Special land holding tax

This is imposed to acquisition and possession of land which is over a certain size.

City planning tax

This tax is imposed to buildings and lands located in the city planning territory.

Water utility and land profit tax

This tax is imposed to lands and buildings that enjoy profit by irrigation works

Common facilities tax

This tax is imposed to users and beneficiaries of common facilities to assign its revenue to manage it.

Land development tax

This is imposed when carrying out land development in an place which is in need for maintenance of public facilities in an area designated for urbanization.

Municipal health insurance tax

This is imposed to a householder of a family which an insured person belongs to.

Indirect taxes

local consumption tax

This tax is imposed to sales and provision of products and service

Golf facilities tax

This is imposed to a person who uses a golf facility.

Prefectural cigarette tax

This is imposed when selling cigarette to retailers in prefectures except for Tokyo.

Metropolitan cigarette tax

This is imposed when selling cigarette to retailers in Tokyo.

Municipal cigarette tax

This is imposed when selling cigarette to retailers in city, town or village.

Special ward cigarette tax

This is imposed when selling cigarette to retailers in Special ward.

Bath tax

This is imposed when you enter mineral Onsen.

Hoteigaizei (special taxes for specific purposes)

Hotiegaizei is newly established tax items by local public organizations other than tax items regulated by local tax law.

This tax is uniquely established by local public organizations that regulates ordinance of new tax items.

There is a system that local public organizations need to get permission from the Minister of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications after a conference in advance for establishment of new tax items

This tax also includes nuclear related tax like nuclear fuel tax and spent nuclear fuel tax and environment related tax like industrial waste tax.

Nuclear fuel tax

This is imposed to nuclear fuel used in nuclear power plants. This tax is regulated by ordinance of prefectures which have nuclear power plants

Nuclear fuel handling tax

This is imposed to nuclear fuel for reprocessing activity regulated by an ordinance of Ibaragi prefecture

Nuclear fuel material handling tax

This is imposed to nuclear fuel for reprocessing activity regulated by an ordinance of Aomori prefecture

Spent nuclear fuel tax

This is imposed to storage of spent nuclear fuel regulated by an ordinance of Kawauchi city Kagoshima pref, Kashiwazaki city Niigata Pref, Genkai town Saga Pref.

Petroleum price adjustment tax

This is imposed to a seller of petroleum in Okinawa

Gravel-digging tax

This is imposed to collecting gravel in Yamakita town Kanagawa Pref.

Pit gravel tax

This is imposed to collecting gravel in Joyo city Kyoto Pref

Industrial waste tax

This is imposed to a company discharging industrial waste intermediate waste processing company and final disposal company in prefectures that regulates this tax.

Norikura environmental preservation tax

This tax is imposed to users of parking lots and bus and taxi in Norikura city Gifu Pref for environmental preservation.

Environment tax for culture and history

This is imposed to users of paid temporary park space for maintenance and preservation of tourists resources based on a ordinance regulated by Dazaifu city Fukuoka Pref.

Environment for future tax

This is imposed to industrial waste final disposal companies permitted by the Mayer for optimization of industrial waste processing based on a ordinance regulated by Kitakyushu cit Fukuoka Pref.

Environmental cooperation tax

This is imposed when entering island territory for maintenance and management of tourists facilities and environmental beautification based on an ordinance regulated by Izena village, Iheya village and Tokashiki village Okinawa Pref.