Income tax refund

I have been living in Japan. I work in multiple places.

Job1: One is my stable job where I work 3 days a week (24 hours/week). I receive salary in bank as "salary". For 2020, they sent me withholding slip for the year. I am a proper employee and work at the office.

Job2: I am a student and work in university as well. However, I heard that school related work in not counted under 28 hours, I thus work around 4 hours a week there. The salary I receive is as "salary". They sent me withholding slip for 2020. I only work for about 3 months (4 hours a week) in a year.

Job3: I work with two organizations on contract basis, which means if they have work they ask me if I am free and then I sometimes work. This is not regular. So some month could be 10-20 hours/month and others could be 0 hours/month. For one organization the money I receive in my bank is as "salary" for the next it is transferred as "remittance". They did not send me withholding slip for 2020.

Job4: I also work for a professor at a university who pays me some money based on the work I do for him. This is home based work. I work around 30 hours/ month. The money I receive is as "Transfer". He did not send me withholding slip for 2020.

Job5: I work freelance as a english teacher. This is not regular. I earn about 1-2 hour in a month or so. Some months are without work.

For 2 month in January, I received scholarship amount from the university.

On an average, my income is 170,000\ a month.
I have a dependent as well whose has no income.
I received a income tax return form from my ward office in mid-January.

Question:
1. Does the work I do on contract basis (Job 3) counts under the 28 hour work limit. How about job 4?

2. In the income tax return form,
- should I write about all my income or
- should I just write about income from my stable job which is job 1
- should I write about income from only those jobs from which I received withholding slip for the year i.e job 1 and job 2?
- Do I need to write the scholarship amount as my income?
- work hour from university work is not included under 28 hr/week rule. Does that mean the income from university work is not counted under income?

3. What if I do not mention about all my income? Will they find out?

4. What if I don't fill in the tax return form?

5. I have given my "my number" for job 1 and job 3. Will the tax office find out the total hours I work and total income I have?

6. I am not sure how to fill in the tax return form. The information on the website was also too overwhelming. Is there any good website which teaches how to fill in the form?

7. What are the pros and cons of filling and not filling out the income tax refund form?

I assume you speak Japanese to a certain extent. You can bring all your papers and go to your local tax office to get free advice. A kind volunteer tax accountant will answer all your questions, in Japanese language easy enough for a teenager to understand, and put a stamp on your form for approval.

This year, due to the pandemic, tax offices seem to be handing out reference numbers for those who need advice, so that the room will not be too crowded. You can also try calling, but the lines are quite busy at this time of the year.

Now, some posters on this forum seem to have a say against free advice, but it is your right. Any tax payer deserves it. If things get complicated as you make more money, you can always visit places like your local ÂF\‰ï to pay something like 20,000 a year to solve all your income tax problems.

Hi Uco,
I am in a similar situation. Even I did not receive withholding slips that I was suppose to receive at the end of the year from all the places that I work at, is it okay if I show my income from only one stable job?

Is there a way the income tax department will find out that I have been involved in multiple jobs?

If the tax office sent you the document package for tax filing, that means they know that you are receiving income from multiple sources (likely, as youfve received the withholding tax papers from two places at least). If you have more than one sources of income, even if one of them is gsalary,h and if you have 200,000 yen or more of income from other source(s), youfd need to declare and do the tax filing.

So youfd need to file at least 1, 2 and 3. For 3, Ifd ask the payer to issue the withholding slip for 2020, tell them you need it for tax filing.

About 4, Ifd ask the professor to issue you the slip as well, but he might say hefs just handling it as expenses.
About 5, if it is that few and far in between, and maybe paid in cash? You could ignore it.

1. If you are on a gstudenth resident status, yes, ANY paid work combined together must fit under 28 hours/week limit. (I donft know what status you have.) If there is some special arrangement about on-campus work, that may be exempt, but thatfs up to your college and yourself.
2. As described above. About scholarship, I am not sure - if it's a "grant" type (as against "loan), it is not subject to income tax, but over a certain amount it will be subject to "gift tax." I would ask the tax office.
3. They know of a few of them already.
4. You have to, if your income other than the first one is 200,000 yen or more for the year. The tax authorities need the info so that they can determine the income tax, resident tax, etc.
5. The hours would not be in the slip. Just the amount.

7. You need to, if your income situation meets certain criteria – there is no pros and cons about it.

For your question 6, I wonder if this helps.

https://www.nta.go.jp/taxes/shiraberu/shinkoku/tebiki/2020/pdf/050.pdf

This is the guide to be used this year for filing taxes on income during 2020.

I forgot to mention that many employers/clients won't send withholding slips until mid February. Also, sending withholding slips is not mandatory. If you were having tax deducted from the actual payment you were receiving in 2020, you still can get it back without the slip, granted that you meet all the requirements.

3. What if I do not mention about all my income? Will they find out?
Tax evasion would never be advised. If you want a sure fire way to have your next residence application rejected, do that. You do not know what your employer on the other side is submitting to the tax authorities, but they can join the dots (person A pays/claims for work done by person B, person B does not file matching records).
And, it says you are a student, so you imply you are allowed to work up to 28 hours in any one week (not averaged across a month - that is specific legal advice I obtained for someone). Again, it seems you are breaching those terms across all of your different jobs.