Freelancers Aren't Happy With Japan's New Invoice System

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Japan Times: From Oct. 1, a new tax regulation decades in the making will go into effect -- and hundreds of thousands of workers in Japan are angry. The Qualified Invoicing System, which requires taxable businesses to issue invoices containing tax information for transactions, has generated a full-fledged movement against it. A petition on Change.org to halt the regulation has received nearly 450,000 signatures. The social movement [...] has held regular demonstrations and conferences advocating against the law, alongside significant protest from the world of pop culture: Animators, filmmakers, voice actors, manga artists and V-tubers of all stripes have joined together against it. While the law is complex, the reason it's hated is not: It's effectively a tax increase. While the system was created to ensure that businesses will properly pay consumption tax, for many freelancers and small businesses the result will amount to a 10% increase in taxes -- a high enough jump to potentially devastate creatives who already make a living by the narrowest of margins. [...] Those who have already registered as taxable businesses or sole proprietors with sales of over 10 million yen are required to register for the system. Small freelancers and tax-exempt businesses, however, will need to consider carefully what to do. "Tax compliance will be the biggest issue for freelancers," [says Fumiko Mizoguchi, indirect tax service country leader at Deloitte]. "If freelancers agree to issue qualified invoices, they should offer the counter-suggestion that their prices will increase 10% as a result." Meanwhile, the protest movement is steady on the ground in Tokyo. Voiction, which has been meeting with legislators to try to halt the law, plans on continuing to fight through the rest of the year and beyond. [Voice actress Yuhko Kaida] explains that the government could still decide to allow small businesses to not file 2023's consumption tax in March 2024, when taxes are due. "If we have the willpower, we can stop this law," Kaida says. "Then we can reduce the damage to people's lives."

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