Documents Needed to Renew Visa

[omae mona]

Thank you for reminding me. It is interesting to hear your experiences. I have never experienced enough delay at immigration either leaving or entering (exclusive reentry permit lanes for the win!) Japan to go to the effort of signing up. It sounds like there is little enthusiasm for the system within Immigration either.

I share your experience during entering. But I never saw special reentry permit lanes on the way out. I've always seen Japanese, resident foreigners, and tourists all commingled. And I always waited at least 10-15 minutes in those lines until the automated gate program began. I absolutely love the dirty looks I get from hundreds of waiting people (including Japanese) as I breeze past them. A few people always try to follow me, and always get turned away by an attendant, as they did not sign up for the program or were not eligible. Sign-up took about 5 minutes if I recall, and was well worth it.

[Yokohammer]

All this fingerprinting is really interesting.

Remember all the fuss and lawsuits about fingerprinting foreign nationals for AR? The old Japan hands will. (<- see what I did there?)

Anyway, so after fingerprinting for AR was deemed illegal and banned, then they brought in these fingerprint reading machines at the airports after 9/11 (and using 9/11 -- "well, they do it in America" -- as an excuse), and now you need to volunteer your fingerprints for these automated gates.

I really don't have a problem with it. Never did. But it's funny how all the bitchers and moaners have vanished, especially since biometric ID is showing up all over the place: banks, mobile phones, etc.

How the world changes.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I really don't have a problem with it. Never did. But it's funny how all the bitchers and moaners have vanished, especially since biometric ID is showing up all over the place: banks, mobile phones, etc.

How the world changes.

It is funny....I like to stick my finger to the Man, but know very well how easy it is to find out literally anything about me. Even more galling is that I've given all the information over and can't do anything about it. It just means that I have to keep my nose clean, which I have found pretty much impossible across my life.

I was staggered, though, to realize how much private information I've readily given away, and how easily I did so....that Kool Aid tastes great.

[Yokohammer]

I wonder if that fingerprinting ruling is still on the books (if it actually was enacted as law, as opposed to just being an "oh alright, we won't do that any more" type of thing).

If it is, it might make all such fingerprinting illegal, and someone with a chip on their shoulder could probably use that to raise a legal ruckus that might be a real PITA for the gov't.

I note that fingerprints are not recorded on the new Residence Card chip. Supposedly.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I wonder if that fingerprinting ruling is still on the books (if it actually was enacted as law, as opposed to just being an "oh alright, we won't do that any more" type of thing).

If it is, it might make all such fingerprinting illegal, and someone with a chip on their shoulder could probably use that to raise a legal ruckus that might be a real PITA for the gov't.

I note that fingerprints are not recorded on the new Residence Card chip. Supposedly.

Because there hasn't been any action, it can't still be on the books (though it wouldn't surprise me), simply because this is one of those issues the zainichi get apoplectic about and they wouldn't let it happen without a fight.

[Yokohammer]

Because there hasn't been any action, it can't still be on the books (though it wouldn't surprise me), simply because this is one of those issues the zainichi get apoplectic about and they wouldn't let it happen without a fight.

This is one of the things that mystifies me. I don't remember any uproar from the zainichi community when the airport fingerprint machines were introduced ... or did I just miss it?

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Because there hasn't been any action, it can't still be on the books (though it wouldn't surprise me), simply because this is one of those issues the zainichi get apoplectic about and they wouldn't let it happen without a fight.

This is one of the things that mystifies me. I don't remember any uproar from the zainichi community when the airport fingerprint machines were introduced ... or did I just miss it?

No, as far as I know, there was none...Korea must be doing something similar....

[Samurai_Jerk]

Special Permanent Residents don't get fingerprinted.

[wagyl]

Special Permanent Residents don't get fingerprinted.

Indeed

Also, Hammer, it is important to remember that the anti-fingerprint campaign was to get it off the ARC, so that we are all no longer treated like criminals. And that remains on the books, and remains the case. Now, we are not being fingerprinted because we are registering as aliens, we are being fingerprinted, and each time mind you, because we are foreigners entering Japan, so that we can now be treated like terrorists.

[Yokohammer]

Also, Hammer, it is important to remember that the anti-fingerprint campaign was to get it off the ARC, so that we are all no longer treated like criminals. And that remains on the books, and remains the case. Now, we are not being fingerprinted because we are registering as aliens, we are being fingerprinted, and each time mind you, because we are foreigners entering Japan, so that we can now be treated like terrorists.

Anecdote: I did get approached by some plain clothes gentlemen in the arrival hall last time I entered. Japan had just expressed support for Palestine, and I apparently look too Hasidic to be safe. We ended up having a frank and free flowing but pleasant chat, enough that I was able to raise the topic of domestic terrorism in the form of Aum and the Red Army at Lod Airport (even though the last is ancient history) and suggest their focus may be in the wrong direction.

So it sounds as though there actually is sort of a potential legal time bomb in there, somewhere. Interesting.

And yes, as far as I know the only acts of terrorism ever committed on Japanese soil have been committed by Japanese. Of course someone is bound to try and paint the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as terrorist acts in order to negate that inconvenient and annoying little historical fact.

EDIT: Uh-oh ... looks like I included something you subsequently deleted. If inconvenient will delete ...

[wagyl]

Just to confirm that yes I did write that content Hammer quotes, even though I later edited it out of my post.

And no, no legal time bomb. The prohibition is not on any and all fingerprinting, it was on municipal governments taking and keeping records of fingerprints for alien registration. And they don't do that, so everything is hunky dory.

You want to stop the next head of the hydra appearing, you have to fight that one notwithstanding that you won the last battle with the last one.

[FaeAutumn]

For the two tax documents needed to renew the visa, it only deals with your current local tax situation right? In my current city, I'm up-to-date with my tax payments but I owe taxes to a city in a different prefecture that I am currently working with to pay off.


These tax documents only deal with the local town/prefecture?
nozeishoumeisho+kazeishoumeisho


Actually, the previous city charged me even when I had left Japan but because I did not turn in my gaijin card, they continued to tax me for the year that I was not in Japan working...


I have to renew my visa in February 2014....so I always get uber nervous about what I need to do beforehand.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Special Permanent Residents don't get fingerprinted.

Special Permanent Residents are born and bred in Japan, speak Japanese as a native language and are fully immersed in Japanese culture to the point that makes them effectively indistinguishable from "ordinary" Japanese on top of being the children of people born and bred in Japan, who speak Japanese as a native language and are fully immersed in Japanese culture to the point that makes them effectively indistinguishable from "ordinary" Japanese as they are the children of people born and bred in Japan, who speak Japanese as a native language and are fully immersed in Japanese culture to the point that makes them effectively indistinguishable from "ordinary" Japanese as they were almost invariably born as Japanese subjects.

Apologies to Koreans, Chinese (and Taiwanese, Sakhalinese, etc., etc.) if the above is insensitive, but at least explore the matter of legalizing dual citizenship for legal adults instead of bitterly opposing it due to perceived slights made generations ago.

Irrelevant rant over...sorry about that.

[yanpa]

For the two tax documents needed to renew the visa, it only deals with your current local tax situation right?

IIRC it's for the most recent full year of payments, not your entire history.

[GomiGirl]

For the two tax documents needed to renew the visa, it only deals with your current local tax situation right?

IIRC it's for the most recent full year of payments, not your entire history.

I think you are correct.

[Samurai_Jerk]

For the two tax documents needed to renew the visa, it only deals with your current local tax situation right?

IIRC it's for the most recent full year of payments, not your entire history.

I think you are correct.

Let me second that.

Also, I have a friend who was behind on payments because he had been unemployed. He found a new job in time to get his work visa renewed but didn't have enough money in the bank to get all his tax payments up to date. He worked out a payment schedule with his local city office and showed proof to immigration that he was making those payments on time and they accepted that. I'm not saying they always will but there seems to be some flexibility.

@FaeAutumn: You shouldn't have been taxed for the year you weren't working in Japan. What you're probably talking about is the taxes owed on the previous year that you did work in Japan that don't need to be paid till the following year. That's how juminzei works.

[FaeAutumn]

Thank you all so much. You've been a big help. I'm not as stressed out anymore and will continue to make payments to the previous city...