Voice Actor Pinch Under Japan’s ‘Invoice System’ Tax Rules

A change is coming to the Japanese tax code, and it’s likely to affect some of the anime voice actors we love and potentially make it harder for them to break into the industry. Keep reading to see how Japan’s new “invoice system” tax changes might affect your favorite anime creators!

Japan’s Voice Actors in a Pinch Due to New “Invoice System” Tax Rules

In general, Japan has a tax system that’s similar to the U.S. and many other countries. Private individuals declare their income at the end of the year and either pay taxes if they’re owed, or receive a rebate if their employers have withheld enough tax from their salary each month. Corporations — all of which are traditional “C” corporations, since Japan lacks anything similar to a business-friendly S-corp or LLC type of system, because that would be logical and encourage entrepreneurship — also pay taxes after their fiscal year ends. Japan’s 10% consumption tax is separate from all of this, which is levied on everything from things you buy in a store to purchases of land to invoices for certain kinds of contract work.

Under the ‘invoice system’ tax rules, Japan is set to apply this tax on invoices issued by smaller private contractors, including minor anime seiyuu and various other creators. Some say that the new system will be unfair to voice actor tamago, up-and-coming young voice actors who are still trying to break into the industry. It’s enough to make us cry!

For purposes of consumption tax, there are two different kinds of entities: taxable ones, either larger private businesses or corporations which declare income and pay taxes, and smaller-scale players such as voice actors or manga-ka assistants who fall into the “non-taxed contractor” category because they earn less than $72,000 annually. Now the Japanese government wants to take a 10% bite out of the income of these smaller players, separately from what they pay in income taxes.

The new invoice system rules could affect staff who work as freelancers in voice acting, animation, manga creation, and other fields. These workers could be forced to register to get a tax ID number, essentially running an “employment agency” for which they are the sole employee or eating the 10% consumption tax bite. Since anime studios prefer to work with staff who don’t complicate their tax paperwork situation, it will disadvantage not-yet-established voice actors and give agencies more pricing power.

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Of course, this won’t affect your favorite voice actors like Kana Hanazawa, Yui Horie, or any seiyuu famous enough for us to know their names. These seasoned industry pros are already represented by famous talent agencies like VIMS, I’m Enterprize, or Office Osawa, who manage all the paperwork. No, the invoice system tax changes would only affect nameless contractors working in the industry who aren’t famous yet.

The rules could theoretically affect how companies like JAST USA or J18 Publishing work with contractors living inside Japan. Nothing changes if we’ve got a relationship with a transition company or other entity registered to pay taxes. But if we hire small contractors to do translation or editing work, those staff members could get charged an extra 10% consumption tax on their work, in addition to what they pay in income taxes. Naturally, we’ll work hard to avoid any disruption with the staff we work with.

As we can see from anime like Shirobako! or Sore ga Seiyu!, a lot is being asked of young people trying to break into creative industries these days. Not only do they have tons of competition and ridiculously low wages, but they have to develop skills in social media management to promote themselves as professionals and max out their networking skills in the industry. And now, they might have to learn how to manage taxes and file paperwork, too.

Thanks for reading this blog post about the new invoice system tax changes that might affect Japan’s up-and-coming voice actors. Got any comments? Leave them below, or chat with us on Twitter!