Japanese Pension
Unfortunately, it looks like millions of Japanese pension payers are not going to receive a single yen due to a discovery that was made earlier this year.
The population of Japan is about 130 million. It was discovered that 50 million pension accounts became "undefinable" meaning that even if you retire and go to claim your pension, you have no guarantee of getting any of it back.
The Nenkin Techo [年金手帳] or "Pension Booklet" contains your unique number which you would then use to claim money when you retire. At the moment, this number means nothing for millions of people as they would be told that "we don't know where your pension is" or "can you prove you paid your pension?"
There was an election during the year and all the politicians made promises pre-election period to solve the issue by March 2008. Now that its post election, we see them on TV and the other media saying how it was election time and that they couldn't just say "we'd try."
Me thinks that the pension money has been pocketed by many politicians.
The amount of tax deducted from ones pay is bad but paying money for nothing (in this case pension) is even worse.
The amount of income tax/national health and pension thats deducted depends on ones salary. If you are in the 10,000,000 yen+ bracket then it would be about 20 - 30% and if you start getting in to the 1,000,000,000 yen bracket then it can be like 40 - 50% deducted (so I hear ^^;)
Whats it like in your region? Are you left with peanuts after all these bits n pieces are deducted?
For those thinking of (or already) work in Japan, I recommend you set up a Sole Proprietorship to legitimately reduce the amount you are taxed.
You may also want to read up my previous article on working in Japan (which includes average salaries) in which case my learning Japanese article will also come in handy.
