Josh Zhang
@joshtokyofinance.bsky.social
Cross-border finance & tax between China 🇨🇳 and Japan 🇯🇵.
Structure over guesswork — the diagram most people never draw.
FCMA, CGMA · CPA Australia · Tokyo.
Breakdowns → seisei.tokyo
Structure over guesswork — the diagram most people never draw.
FCMA, CGMA · CPA Australia · Tokyo.
Breakdowns → seisei.tokyo
Division and taxation are separate questions. The governing law decides who inherits how much. Whether Japanese inheritance tax applies is decided separately, by Japan's Inheritance Tax Act (Art. 1-3) — driven by where the property…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
October 8, 2026 at 4:00 AM
Division and taxation are separate questions. The governing law decides who inherits how much. Whether Japanese inheritance tax applies is decided separately, by Japan's Inheritance Tax Act (Art. 1-3) — driven by where the property…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
The shares can look completely different. Under Japan's Civil Code (Art. 900), a spouse takes one-half alongside the children, and parents don't inherit when children exist. Under Chinese statutory succession, spouse, children, and…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
October 7, 2026 at 4:00 AM
The shares can look completely different. Under Japan's Civil Code (Art. 900), a spouse takes one-half alongside the children, and parents don't inherit when children exist. Under Chinese statutory succession, spouse, children, and…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
Nationality decides, not residence. Japan's Act on General Rules for Application of Laws (Art. 36): succession is governed by the national law of the deceased. So when a Chinese national passes away in Japan, who inherits — and how…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
October 2, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Nationality decides, not residence. Japan's Act on General Rules for Application of Laws (Art. 36): succession is governed by the national law of the deceased. So when a Chinese national passes away in Japan, who inherits — and how…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/governing-law-inheritance/
Inheritance is a structure, not a single-year filing. Where assets sit, who the heirs are, and how value moves across two stages — that's one diagram, drawn before anything happens, not after. "Zero now" and "zero forever" are di…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
October 1, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Inheritance is a structure, not a single-year filing. Where assets sit, who the heirs are, and how value moves across two stages — that's one diagram, drawn before anything happens, not after. "Zero now" and "zero forever" are di…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
¥156.38 on September 30 — the yen's strongest print in two weeks, up roughly 1.9% across the month on intervention concern and signs of US–Japan coordination.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-10-01/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-10-01/
September 30, 2026 at 10:02 PM
¥156.38 on September 30 — the yen's strongest print in two weeks, up roughly 1.9% across the month on intervention concern and signs of US–Japan coordination.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-10-01/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-10-01/
The spousal reduction is generous, but it's a first-act story. Property a spouse inherits becomes taxable again on the spouse's own death. Maximizing relief in the first inheritance can quietly build a heavier bill in the second.
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
September 30, 2026 at 3:00 AM
The spousal reduction is generous, but it's a first-act story. Property a spouse inherits becomes taxable again on the spouse's own death. Maximizing relief in the first inheritance can quietly build a heavier bill in the second.
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
There's a real buffer. Japan's basic deduction means tax applies only to the portion above a threshold that scales with the number of statutory heirs — not to "everything you own."
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
September 28, 2026 at 3:00 AM
There's a real buffer. Japan's basic deduction means tax applies only to the portion above a threshold that scales with the number of statutory heirs — not to "everything you own."
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
Japan taxes property located in Japan on a progressive scale that climbs from 10% to as high as 55%. More than half of what you meant to leave your children can go to tax. So the instinct to copy one country's logic onto the othe…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
September 27, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Japan taxes property located in Japan on a progressive scale that climbs from 10% to as high as 55%. More than half of what you meant to leave your children can go to tax. So the instinct to copy one country's logic onto the othe…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
China has no inheritance tax — not an exemption, but the absence of the tax category itself. (Hong Kong abolished estate duty in 2006, Singapore in 2008.)
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
September 26, 2026 at 3:00 AM
China has no inheritance tax — not an exemption, but the absence of the tax category itself. (Hong Kong abolished estate duty in 2006, Singapore in 2008.)
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/china-japan-inheritance-tax/
Relief is reserved for those who file Taxed at home and again in Japan? Foreign tax credits and the Japan–China treaty exist to relieve double taxation — but only if you've filed correctly in both countries. File nothing, and yo…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
September 25, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Relief is reserved for those who file Taxed at home and again in Japan? Foreign tax credits and the Japan–China treaty exist to relieve double taxation — but only if you've filed correctly in both countries. File nothing, and yo…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
September 24, 2026 at 10:01 PM
The tax authority already knows This doesn't rely on voluntary disclosure. Under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), Japan has automatically exchanged financial-account data with China since 2018. Your overseas balances and int…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
September 24, 2026 at 3:00 AM
The tax authority already knows This doesn't rely on voluntary disclosure. Under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), Japan has automatically exchanged financial-account data with China since 2018. Your overseas balances and int…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
Japan's Cabinet approved the outline on September 15: consumption tax on food and beverages drops from 8% to 1% for two years from April 2027. The number most people skipped past is the other one — ¥10 trillion (about $63…
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-24/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-24/
September 23, 2026 at 10:02 PM
Japan's Cabinet approved the outline on September 15: consumption tax on food and beverages drops from 8% to 1% for two years from April 2027. The number most people skipped past is the other one — ¥10 trillion (about $63…
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-24/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-24/
Five years, not ten Worldwide taxation doesn't start at "ten years in Japan." It begins once your cumulative residence exceeds 5 years within any 10-year window. Most long-term foreign residents crossed that line years ago — wit…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
September 23, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Five years, not ten Worldwide taxation doesn't start at "ten years in Japan." It begins once your cumulative residence exceeds 5 years within any 10-year window. Most long-term foreign residents crossed that line years ago — wit…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/worldwide-taxation-residency/
And the authorities aren't waiting for you to disclose. Under CRS, overseas account balances are reported and exchanged between tax authorities automatically — whether or not you file. The quiet baseline: what you file and what ge…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
September 22, 2026 at 3:00 AM
And the authorities aren't waiting for you to disclose. Under CRS, overseas account balances are reported and exchanged between tax authorities automatically — whether or not you file. The quiet baseline: what you file and what ge…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
Assets & Liabilities Report — income over ¥20M plus assets of ¥300M (or ¥100M in exit-tax securities)? Also June 30 (same Act, Art. 6-2).
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
September 21, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Assets & Liabilities Report — income over ¥20M plus assets of ¥300M (or ¥100M in exit-tax securities)? Also June 30 (same Act, Art. 6-2).
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
Overseas Assets Report — if your overseas assets exceed ¥50M as of Dec 31, you file by June 30 the following year (Overseas Wire Transfer Reporting Act, Art. 5). The 2020 reform moved this off March 15 — so "same day as my tax ret…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
September 20, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Overseas Assets Report — if your overseas assets exceed ¥50M as of Dec 31, you file by June 30 the following year (Overseas Wire Transfer Reporting Act, Art. 5). The 2020 reform moved this off March 15 — so "same day as my tax ret…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/annual-compliance-calendar/
Tax avoidance is the grey zone. Each transaction is lawful in form, but the whole arrangement exists only to cut tax. Here the tax office can invoke "denial of acts and calculations" (Corporation Tax Act, Art. 132) — recomputing your t…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
September 19, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Tax avoidance is the grey zone. Each transaction is lawful in form, but the whole arrangement exists only to cut tax. Here the tax office can invoke "denial of acts and calculations" (Corporation Tax Act, Art. 132) — recomputing your t…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
The Bank of Japan raised the policy rate 25bp to 1.25% on September 18 — a 31-year high — and the yen weakened anyway. That inversion is the part worth sitting with.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-19/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-19/
September 18, 2026 at 10:01 PM
The Bank of Japan raised the policy rate 25bp to 1.25% on September 18 — a 31-year high — and the yen weakened anyway. That inversion is the part worth sitting with.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-19/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-19/
1,700 applications a month. Then 70.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-18/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-18/
September 17, 2026 at 10:02 PM
1,700 applications a month. Then 70.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-18/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-18/
Tax evasion is a crime. Concealing income, fabricating expenses, failing to file — "deception or wrongful act" — carries up to 10 years' imprisonment or a ¥10M fine (Income Tax Act, Art. 238).
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
September 17, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Tax evasion is a crime. Concealing income, fabricating expenses, failing to file — "deception or wrongful act" — carries up to 10 years' imprisonment or a ¥10M fine (Income Tax Act, Art. 238).
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
A 2.5% weekly move in the yen is a market story. For anyone taxed in Japan, it is also a balance-sheet event nobody placed a trade for.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-17/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-17/
September 16, 2026 at 10:01 PM
A 2.5% weekly move in the yen is a market story. For anyone taxed in Japan, it is also a balance-sheet event nobody placed a trade for.
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-17/
Full breakdown → https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/trendjack-2026-09-17/
Tax saving is lawful. You're using regimes the law puts in plain view — the blue-return special deduction, small-enterprise mutual aid, the simplified consumption-tax election. Use them on their stated terms; no issue.
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
September 16, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Tax saving is lawful. You're using regimes the law puts in plain view — the blue-return special deduction, small-enterprise mutual aid, the simplified consumption-tax election. Use them on their stated terms; no issue.
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/tax-saving-vs-evasion/
The settlor–beneficiary relationship changes everything. If the settlor is the sole beneficiary, the isolation weakens. Structure matters far more than the label "trust." A trust is not body armor you put on after being shot. Its prot…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/
September 15, 2026 at 3:00 AM
The settlor–beneficiary relationship changes everything. If the settlor is the sole beneficiary, the isolation weakens. Structure matters far more than the label "trust." A trust is not body armor you put on after being shot. Its prot…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/
Governing law is a design choice, not an afterthought. China's Trust Act (Arts. 15–17) and Japan's Trust Act (Art. 23) both separate trust property from the settlor's bankruptcy and bar compulsory execution as a rule. BVI's VISTA "fir…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/
September 14, 2026 at 3:00 AM
Governing law is a design choice, not an afterthought. China's Trust Act (Arts. 15–17) and Japan's Trust Act (Art. 23) both separate trust property from the settlor's bankruptcy and bar compulsory execution as a rule. BVI's VISTA "fir…
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/
→ https://seisei.tokyo/en/insights/asset-protection-trust/