Certified Public Accountants | International Tax for Foreign Residents in Japan

Big Four standards. One accountant who answers you.

Japanese tax and accounting for foreign-owned companies and foreign residents in Japan — with US filings handled in the same office. Fully online, in English.

Why this practice exists

A large firm gives you technical depth, but your contact changes every two years and the work is done by juniors you never meet.

A small local office is close at hand, but the English is a thin layer over Japanese thinking, and anything cross-border stops at the border.

This is the third option.

A global mindset

I qualified under the US accounting system, studied accounting and tax law at graduate level in Japan, and worked in international tax and finance inside companies before going independent. That changes how you get answered.

• A straight answer, including when it is no. If it is not allowed here, I will say so, then tell you what is.
• A recommendation, not a menu. I will tell you which option I would choose and why.
• “I don’t know yet” is a real answer. Rather than a sentence you cannot act on.
• Nothing is left implied. You will never finish an email wondering whether that was a yes.

Big Four quality, without the Big Four overhead

A Big Four fee pays for the building and the layers of staff, not for better thinking. The thinking comes down to a few working habits — and those come with the person, not the firm.

• Every tax position has a written reason. You get the rule it rests on before we file, not after a question arrives.
• The numbers are checked against the source. Bank, ledger and filing agree. Every month.
• Filings are built to hold up in a tax audit, not just to be accepted when submitted.
• Cross-border answers cover both countries — not the Japanese answer with the US side assumed away.

What I handle

Companies — monthly bookkeeping, payroll and social insurance, consumption tax, corporate filings, and head-office reporting your parent company can read. New entities and companies changing accountants.

Setting up in Japan — KK or GK, registration, tax office filings, first-year compliance.

Inheritance — Japanese inheritance tax filings, including estates with heirs living abroad.

Individuals — annual returns, rental income, crypto, and the tax certificates immigration asks for at visa renewal.

US and Japanese filings, one office

If you are American, Japan is only half your year. Citizenship-based taxation means the 1040 does not stop because you moved: every year it is the Japanese return, plus 1040, FBAR, often Form 8938, and Form 1116 or 2555.

Most people use two firms who never speak to each other, and the mistakes happen in the gap — which year a Japanese tax payment belongs to for foreign tax credit purposes, how residence tax assessed the following year is treated.

Here both sides sit in one office. US returns are prepared and signed by a US CPA licensed in New York, working alongside me.

Two obligations people find out about too late:

• Form 3520 — a US person receiving over USD 100,000 from a foreign estate or gift has a US filing obligation, with severe penalties for missing it. Your Japanese accountant will not mention it.
• Form 5471 — own 10% or more of a Japanese company as a US person and you have a controlled foreign corporation, with GILTI to consider. This starts the day you register.

Inheritance

By the time the ten-month filing window opens, the tax is mostly fixed. That period is for reporting what happened, not changing it. The decisions that move the number are made while the person is alive — usually years earlier.

• Residency and the ten-year rule. Whether worldwide assets or only Japanese ones are taxed turns on residence history and timing. Arriving or leaving a year earlier changes the scope entirely.
• Reliefs that must be set up in advance. The small residential plot valuation, the life insurance exemption, the spousal credit — none can be created after the fact.
• Lifetime gifting. Japan’s two gifting regimes work over years, and the choice between them is not reversible.
• For US persons, both systems at once. Planning against Japanese inheritance tax alone can quietly make the US estate tax position worse.

I build and run that plan with you: where the estate stands, what it costs under the current structure, and what to change in what order.

When the time comes, I handle the filing end to end, including the Japanese paperwork you cannot request from abroad. Signing is electronic.

How it works

1. Send the form on the contact page with a few lines about your situation.
2. A thirty-minute call. I tell you what Japan — and where relevant, the US — requires of you.
3. A written quote with the scope stated. You decide.
4. Documents by upload, signatures electronic, questions answered by the person doing your work.

A Client’s Perspective

I don’t speak a word of Japanese. For a fixed monthly fee, he’s been an enormous help — and not just with the company’s accounts and taxes. He’s handled my personal tax return, my visa renewal paperwork, the My Number card application, a government support grant application, and even the admin side of dealing with hospitals. For what I pay, it’s remarkable.

— R.O., Founder, film school in Tokyo (UK)

For accounting firms outside Japan

If you have a client with a Japanese entity, Japanese property, or a Japanese filing obligation and no counterpart here, write to me directly and I will send our capability statement.