Corporate filing systems: e-Tax vs eLTAX, and practical eLTAX difficulties

Corporate tax filings are split across two systems run by two different authorities. 法人税 (national corporate income tax) and 地方法人税 (local corporate tax) are filed through e-Tax. Separately, 法人都道府県民税・事業税 (a prefectural income-type tax) and 法人住民税 (a residency-type tax) are filed through the separate eLTAX system — a different authority with different authorization methods (MyNumber card and card reader). Working with eLTAX has practical pitfalls. Choosing the correct filing region at registration is critical — for example, a company in Minato-ku must select "東京都" rather than "港区" at the top level, otherwise irrelevant categories such as tobacco tax or hot-spring tax appear. It is recommended to screenshot chosen settings for reuse next year, since the interface is complex and trial-and-error selection of the right options can take up to 1.5 hours. Card payment does not always work; paying through 住信SBIネット銀行 (direct debit) has worked. A paper-filed return is hard to find in eLTAX for payment purposes — sometimes the record has to be recreated manually. Unlike e-Tax, eLTAX does not support smartphone QR-code signing — only a MyNumber card reader — and the form can crash on certain characters (workaround: switch Windows locale and date format to Japanese). In one known case a return filed through eLTAX showed "successfully sent" status but the data never actually reached the tax office — discovered only a month later. Recommendation: always verify delivery status directly in eLTAX or with the tax office, rather than relying on the status shown by third-party services such as freee.