# Offer in.



## pasturesnew (Sep 7, 2007)

Appreciate any thoughts, wife & 1 kid joining me. 

I figure I may be able to try and get an additional months housing.

Base JPY 13m
Private Healthcare
401k 
20 days holiday
Bonus
Travel to work/home paid
Social Insurance - 50% Employee contribution reimbursed - circa JPY 500k pa.
Housing Allowance - (none - however I have been informed my rent is tax deductable).

Housing
1st move - deposit,key & agent fees all paid by Employer. Any subsequent move Employer will pay deposit only.


Relocation
Flights for all family
Transfer of household goods if required
1 months rent for housing

Waiting for paperwork to confirm above but looks a fair deal to me.

Im coming in via current European Employer, I was previously a permanent Employee, now a contractor, offered a permanent "local hire" in Tokyo.


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## larabell (Sep 10, 2007)

If "13m" stands for 13 million yen per year, that's not bad. You should be able to live quite well on that. You might want to make sure that the company will hook you up with a good real estate agent who speaks English. You can probably find one yourself, especially given that the company is paying the fees so you don't have to shop for a bargain-basement agency. But I'm sure the local office must have better connections than you do at this point and you'll already have enough to do just moving. And since they're paying, you'd think they'd have a vested interest in picking the agent for you, anyway. (Avoid Ken Corporation and/or Century 21 if possible. They cater mostly to ex-pats and the places they manage are way overpriced.) You might also want to verify that the company will sign as guarantor on your lease. Most will. But if they balk, you'll find it a lot harder to rent anything decent here.

If you're a US citizen, your housing expenses can be deducted from your US tax return to the extent your salary exceeds the $85K exclusion (which is does if I'm reading your information right). I've never heard of rent being deductible in Japan and I have no idea about other countries (ie: whether citizens from countries other than the US are taxed on foreign-earned income while living abroad and, if so, what they can deduct).

Most ex-pat packages have some kind of tax equalization. It sounds like this isn't a full ex-pat package but rather a local hire with relocation thrown in. That's not a big deal for most people -- Japanese income tax is really no more than US tax and, if you count State tax, you'll usually end up paying less here. But you might want to check whether the company is willing to "gross-up" things like the up-front housing fees. That benefit will likely be taxable in both Japan and maybe even in your home country so it would help to have the company toss an extra 20~30% into the pot to compensate for the bump in your taxable income.

Also... if you're in a negotiating mood, see if you can get the company to pay to have your tax returns done by a real accountant. The Japanese forms aren't all that hard to follow, but... they're in Japanese. And if you're from the US and don't want to piss-off the authorities back home, the US forms get *really* complex when you're living outside the country. My tax guy charges me $700 per year -- and now I wish I had asked my employer to throw that in before I hired on. And don't let them shrug it off by saying that the company does everyone's taxes anyway. That's usually true but there are many events (like selling stock or participating in an employee stock-purchase program) where you'll end up having to submit a Japanese return anyway. Might as well get them to agree to do whatever it takes to help you file whatever returns you may need to file if you can.



> Transfer of household goods if required


You might want to ask if there are any limits. Both of my to-Japan moves had limits placed as far as how much stuff I could ship by air and how much by sea. It's never enough to ship everything you own but it would be good to know beforehand how much stuff you'll have to get rid of.

See if they'll negotiate a year's worth of furniture rental in lieu of shipping. For large things, it's sometimes cheaper to rent pre-owned stuff than to ship similar stuff from overseas, the company will save some money, you'll be able to get stuff that fits better in the generally smaller form-factor apartments in Japan, and after the year's lease is up, you can probably buy the stuff from the rental company for pennies on the dollar. Only ship what you cannot replace. Everything you've heard about Japanese digs being small is true (unless, of course, you're Dave Spector and live in a penthouse in Roppongi).



> Waiting for paperwork to confirm above but looks a fair deal to me.


It looks quite workable to me but since I have no idea what you do for a living (unless that was in some other thread), I couldn't say whether it's "fair" or not.

If you end up on the West side of Tokyo, PM me (via the forum) when you get here and we can meet for lunch and compare notes. Congratulations...


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## pasturesnew (Sep 7, 2007)

larabell said:


> If "13m" stands for 13 million yen per year, that's not bad. You should be able to live quite well on that. You might want to make sure that the company will hook you up with a good real estate agent who speaks English. You can probably find one yourself, especially given that the company is paying the fees so you don't have to shop for a bargain-basement agency. But I'm sure the local office must have better connections than you do at this point and you'll already have enough to do just moving. And since they're paying, you'd think they'd have a vested interest in picking the agent for you, anyway. (Avoid Ken Corporation and/or Century 21 if possible. They cater mostly to ex-pats and the places they manage are way overpriced.) You might also want to verify that the company will sign as guarantor on your lease. Most will. But if they balk, you'll find it a lot harder to rent anything decent here.
> 
> If you're a US citizen, your housing expenses can be deducted from your US tax return to the extent your salary exceeds the $85K exclusion (which is does if I'm reading your information right). I've never heard of rent being deductible in Japan and I have no idea about other countries (ie: whether citizens from countries other than the US are taxed on foreign-earned income while living abroad and, if so, what they can deduct).
> 
> ...


Thanks very much for your response. I should of said in my original post that I have a J wife - oops.. I will try and squeeze another months housing out of them. In terms of guarantor shouldnt be a problem as Im working for a Bank, else the Father in Law can sign I guess. I anticipate renting 3LDK hopefully in the range 250 - 300K a month, from the brief surfing online this looks possible..I believe my Company use Tokyu for Housing or something along those lines. I will be interested to see if there is any ceiling on deposit, key and agent fees that my Company pay, if there isnt then this may open up more exclusive type mansions etc... I will look to see if I can get the cash option in lieu of bringing over household goods as anything extra will possibly go to putting the little one into International School, although he is already bi-lingual so the transition into local schools may not be so bad..

Thanks


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## pasturesnew (Sep 7, 2007)

larabell said:


> If "13m" stands for 13 million yen per year, that's not bad. You should be able to live quite well on that. You might want to make sure that the company will hook you up with a good real estate agent who speaks English. You can probably find one yourself, especially given that the company is paying the fees so you don't have to shop for a bargain-basement agency. But I'm sure the local office must have better connections than you do at this point and you'll already have enough to do just moving. And since they're paying, you'd think they'd have a vested interest in picking the agent for you, anyway. (Avoid Ken Corporation and/or Century 21 if possible. They cater mostly to ex-pats and the places they manage are way overpriced.) You might also want to verify that the company will sign as guarantor on your lease. Most will. But if they balk, you'll find it a lot harder to rent anything decent here.
> 
> If you're a US citizen, your housing expenses can be deducted from your US tax return to the extent your salary exceeds the $85K exclusion (which is does if I'm reading your information right). I've never heard of rent being deductible in Japan and I have no idea about other countries (ie: whether citizens from countries other than the US are taxed on foreign-earned income while living abroad and, if so, what they can deduct).
> 
> ...


Thanks again for your comments thus far. 
Latest update :
Offer is now confirmed, moving to Senior Mgt for signoff, papers will subsequently be provided for review/signing, following that a further discussion with HR to confirm benefits and an introduction to external company who will deal with the Visa - Im currently a contractor with the Employer who is offering the permanent position in Tokyo, I was a permanent Employee of the same Company 6 months previously but got let go .....

As you can imagine my wife has heaps of questions and I am trying my best to keep things in check, what I would like to ask is when do people mentally prepare themselves for such a move and indeed start the process of getting their affairs in order, do I wait a few weeks until Snr Mgt signoff, a further 4-6 weeks + for a Visa to be secured or simply start now on some non cost impacting activities to ease the transition. Dont get me wrong my glass is always half full but I am also very aware that things dont go as smoothly as one would hope. 
Appreciate anyone's thoughts on this. 

Thanks


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