Paperwork, Money Laundering, and the Eternal Hanko
Last month, my son entered his first year of high school in Japan. For those of you unfamiliar with the Japanese education system, Japan has 6 years of elementary school (required by the government), 3 years of junior high school (also required) and 3 years of high school (optional). A first year high school student is what in the United States is called a sophomore.
My son attends what is called a “free school”, which means that the school is free to choose its own curriculum outside of the prescribed Ministry of Education curriculum. Tuition, while far cheaper that what one would expect in the United States, is definitely not free. During the application process for my son’s enrollment in high school, I filled out numerous pieces of paper to apply for scholarship funds as recommended by the school. And when I say pieces of paper, allow me to explain that Japanese paperwork can be fiendishly difficult for the uninitiated to complete — and I don’t mean because the forms are written in Japanese. Some forms are printed on size A4 paper, others on B5, and yet others on folded sheets of B1. Some are single-sided, others double-sided. Some include small dotted-line circles where the signor is supposed to affix his seal or chop (known in Japan as a hanko 判子)— more on that later) that can be easily overlooked.
I submitted my paperwork to the school and thought that I was finished. What a naive little man was I.
A few weeks later, my son brought home a whole new stack of forms to be filled out and submitted to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. This, like other aspects of raising a child in Japan, once again uncovered assumptions I never knew were there.
Assumption #1: Scholarship funds are paid out to the parents. Wrong. Funds are paid out directly to the child’s bank account. What’s that? You never thought about setting up a bank account in your child’s name until they were older? In Japan, minors can start working part-time at age 16. At 18, they can vote. At 20, they officially become adults. I never thought it would be necessary to set up a bank account in my son’s name for at least a couple more years. So, off I went to my local post office, which like postal institutions in other countries, offers a variety of financial services including personal accounts to save money and make payments for goods and services. I entered my post office at around 10:30 in the morning and finally departed at a little after 1:00 in the afternoon. Why so long, you ask? Once again, there were numerous forms to fill out, this time including several to prevent money-laundering and to verify that I was not a diplomat of a foreign country. Japan is very strict when it comes to restrictions against money-laundering and verifying financial account holders so I tried to prepare by bringing every piece of relevant ID that I could think of with me to the post office: My son’s Japanese passport, his My Number card (somewhat like a Social Security card in the U.S.), his medical insurance ID card (it still amazes my how this card is relied on so often in Japan as a form of ID even though it does not include a photo of the bearer), my most recent tax payment statement, and our residence statement (juminhyo 住民票). Regarding the residence statement, in Japan you must prove that you and your family members do indeed live together at the residence registered with your local government. Additionally, the form must have been certified within the past 3 months no matter how long you have lived at that address. That was another assumption that I confronted several years ago but I digress.
Assumption #2: You may think that you have all the documents and ID needed when filling out paperwork in Japan but you will often be wrong. With all these documents in hand, I thought that I was fully prepared and so off to the post office I went. That is when I found out about something I ruefully call the Coulda Woulda Shoulda Document: The one that you left at home and could have brought with you, would have brought with you, and should have brought with you had you known that it would be relevant for the matter at hand. In this case, because my son has dual US as well as Japanese citizenship, I had to fill out yet another form, this time required by the US Department of Treasury, the FATCA. FATCA, or The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is a 2010 United States federal law requiring all non-U.S. foreign financial institutions to report the assets and identities of U.S. citizens to the Department of Treasury and requires those citizens to report their non-U.S. financial assets annually to the Internal Revenue Service. In order to complete this form, I had to produce my son’s Social Security ID number — which I had left at home, foolishly thinking that because I was setting up a bank account in Japan for my Japanese son to receive scholarship money from a Japanese government agency to pay in part for his Japanese school tuition, then what did that have to do at all with the United States? Luckily, I was setting up my account at our neighborhood post office, so I dutifully cycled home to retrieve my son’s Social Security card. Then there was a minor kerfuffle because my son has a first, middle, and last name on all of his U.S. documents and only a first and last name on his Japanese documents — in Japan, most people do not have middle names. The two names did not match. Because I had entered my son’s full U.S. name on the FATCA, I then had to line out my son’s middle name (the post office worker kindly provided a small ruler so that the line would be straight) and then acknowledge the correction by affixing my hanko, which brings me to my next assumption.
Assumption #3: Hanko are being phased out as Japan tries to modernize this antiquated process of authorizing documents: Wrong. Despite an announcement from the Japanese government in October 2020 to remove requirements for hanko across a whole range of documents, one year later not much has changed. While I, as the recognized head of household, have an officially-certified hanko, I never thought of having one made for my son until he had reached adulthood. As a final step in completing his scholarship fund application, my son and my wife are required to affix their hanko as well. Up until now, it has been sufficient for my wife to sign her name in place of a hanko on a whole slew of forms including the rental contract for our apartment. However, even though the government called for the abolishment of hanko just last year, that same government still requires that my son and wife attest to the veracity of the statements made on the scholarship application form by pressing their hanko on a red ink-filled pad and stamping their hanko where indicated inside a dotted-line circle at the bottom of the application. Luckily for me, I had tried to plan ahead and placed an order for my son’s and wife’s own hanko last week with a local shop. They will be ready in a week or so after the Golden Week holidays (April 29 — May 5) pass. We will then each affix our individual hanko to the application and submit it at last.
Fingers crossed.
Note 1: In English, a hanko is also known as a chop, a term adapted from the Hindi word chapa and from the Malay word cap, meaning stamp or rubber stamp.
Note 2: To see an example of an ancient Chinese seal on a document, check out the British Library’s recent Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/COZ64y9KuA6/?igshid=t3jdtnsetmyo
