The government is halfway to making it possible for permanent residents to lose their status due to unpaid taxes and social insurance premiums. However, the bill making this happen is based on inconclusive data. Some argue that’s enough reason to scrap it.
More power lurking over permanent residency
On Friday, the House of Representatives approved a bill on a majority vote that will allow the government to revoke permanent residence permits of foreigners if permit holders intentionally fail to pay taxes or social insurance premiums.
The provision to revoke permanent residency will only apply to some “malicious cases,” Prime Minister Kishida said on Wednesday at the meeting of the Judicial Affairs Committee of parliament’s lower house, according to news agency Jiji Press.
Justice Minister Koizumi Ryuji echoed Kishida’s cautionary defense of the bill, assuring that it will maintain leniency for “cases in which, inevitably, permanent residents cannot pay taxes.” For those dire cases, unpaid taxes “will not be cause for revoking their residency.”
Bill based on insufficient data
“The planned rule would not affect the vast majority of foreign permanent residents,” Kishida said on May 15th. His comments came a week after the Immigration Services Agency (ISA) disclosed to the committee inconclusive data showing 10% of permanent residents had not paid their taxes or social insurance premiums.
The agency’s survey only examined 1,825 of the approximately 890,000 permanent residents in Japan, rendering results short of representative. The data also didn’t establish how many of those identified would fall under the proposed new law stripping permanent residents of their status.
Opposition parties that voted against the bill, such as the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), criticized the lack of data supporting the need to crack down on permanent residents evading tax.
“There are no legislative facts based on sufficient data. All provisions related to the system for permanent residency should be eliminated,” the CDP argued.
CDP politician Daiki Michishita argued that “there are more unpaid taxes by Japanese than by foreigners,” without citing comparative studies on tax data.
Others raised concerns that should the bill become a law, it would put permanent residents in a precarious situation.
The bill will be in the hands of the House of Councillors next week. If the upper house committee approves the bill, it will become a law and likely go into effect by 2027 and affect the current 27% of foreigners living in Japan.
Part of a bigger change
The controversial provision that will make unpaid taxes cause for revoking permanent residency is part of a larger bundle of proposals to amend laws related to a new training and employment system.
The government is in the process of abolishing the current technical intern training program that began in 1993 and replacing it with a new program.
Kishida has praised the transition and legislative changes to implement a new program. The PM says it’s a step toward procuring inbound talent that will help plug Japan’s labor shortage resulting from falling birthrates, population decline, and an aging society.
“As the competition to secure international human resources intensifies, it is important to make our system for integration more appealing and work towards the realization of a society in which we coexist with foreigners so that Japan becomes a country people choose to work in.”
Critics say that the current bill raises the stakes too high for foreigners, going against Kishida’s aim of making Japan more welcoming for work. ย
Lawyer Komai Chie says that “even in cases of unpaid taxes and social insurance premiums due to sudden illness and layoffs will be considered ‘intentional’ in legal terms.”
Another provision, which will allow officials to revoke the permits of those who go out without their proof of permanent residency, is also under scrutiny.
“It is possible for people to accidentally forget their residency card at home, making this a significantly strict law,” Komai says.
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