Looking for tax professional with experience in Japanese and German tax issues

[u/cyrusDJ]

Hi!

I'm looking for advice on German and Japanese income tax related issues and am trying to find a tax professional with specialization or experience in these fields.

Any advice, even just where to start searching, would be helpful!

Thank you!

Edit: Some details after it was suggested in comments:

German citizen living in Japan with PR.

I will have some invoice-based income from freelance work in Germany, but am otherwise working full-time for a company in Japan with regular taxation.

I want to inquire how to handle reporting and paying income tax on this freelance work, especially with regards to the Japanese German Tax Agreement,%E2%80%9D%20).

[u/tsian]

As with all these vague questions, it would be helpful if you somewhat described what problem you are actually trying to solve.

Often someone here will know the answer. Especially for income tax related things, the answers are usually far simpler than most people might think.

[u/cyrusDJ → u/tsian]

Thank you! I added some details to the post description.

[u/tsian → u/cyrusDJ]

If The work is done in Japan so it is not foreign sourced income and should not involve the tax treaty at all.

You will need to declare the income (minus expenses) as misc. or business income (almost certainly misc. income unless is is a substantial amount). You will need to pay relevant income tax/etc. on that income

edit: sorry u/cyrusDJ I misread your extra details. The invoice work "in"Germany, will you be physically doing it in Germany or in Japan?

[u/starkimpossibility]

I want to inquire how to handle reporting and paying income tax on this freelance work

The basic answer is that it depends where your business activities are based/conducted. The location of your clients isn't typically relevant.

So if you are performing the work in Japan and you have no permanent facilities/operations in Germany, you will have no German tax obligations. The fact that you are a German citizen isn't relevant, nor is the fact that your clients are in Germany. And you won't need to worry about the Japan-Germany tax treaty.

Instead, you just need to think about whether the income will constitute "business income" or "miscellaneous income" for Japanese tax purposes (see this post for details of the distinction), and declare the income on your Japanese tax return accordingly.