Digital government services: e-Tax, GBizID, My Number, and post-registration company documents

An electronic signature/cryptographic key for the tax office (マイナンバー/電子証明書) can be obtained by an individual through the tax office's online portal (a cloud version without a physical carrier); the process differs for sole proprietors — check with the consulate/tax office. Full e-Tax functionality needs a My Number card, a My Number card reader (a USB reader for a computer is preferable), and several dedicated apps. Electronic signing of documents during company registration and at the tax office goes through My Number (JPKI); a browser extension links the My Number card to the browser, and a physical card reader is needed separately. Adobe Acrobat can sign PDF documents directly through its built-in reader. A known bug: the e-Tax site can show a blank page — the fix is to switch the browser's language to Japanese, since the site tries to load JS using the language code and returns a 404 (and crashes) for English. The history of submitted applications and payments is available only on the e-Tax website (not the app) — use a wide date filter (e.g., 120 days), as the display can behave oddly; every application has both an XML view (with a hash signature) and a generated PDF. XML/XSL response files from e-Gov are hard to open in modern browsers (blocked by security policy) — working solutions include a Windows XP + IE7 virtual machine with Japanese fonts, or portable Firefox 52 (an old version), which opens such files in one click. Not all e-Tax operations require a certificate — for example, paying tax withheld from an employee's salary needs only an ordinary notice, no electronic certificate/My Number; other procedures do require a certificate/My Number, and a browser plugin is needed. The year-end adjustment (年末調整) can be done partly through the e-Tax personal portal without visiting the tax office (even without a card reader, e.g., from a phone via Safari), but the 法定調書合計表 form requires My Number (which can be read via a phone). GBizID is the unified login for business government services (the pension fund, municipalities, the tax office); it requires an exact match between the name/company name and the official documents — a mismatch (e.g., Latin script vs. katakana/kanji) causes the application to be rejected. Registration often breaks because the name on My Number (Latin script) doesn't match the name in company registration documents (katakana); the fix is to submit the paper form in person at an office, or to register the katakana spelling in the 備考欄 of the jūminhyō through the ward office (not every ward cooperates — refused in Shinjuku per the chat, but worked in other wards). A mismatch between the katakana spelling of a company representative and the name on My Number during freee registration blocks the online document submission (an unresolved live issue as of June 2025). Through G-Biz you can get electronic notices about insurance and pension contributions, but the system only shows notices of amounts due/calculated, not the actual payment slips; for physically paying pension contributions, Pay-Easy through online banking (e.g., SBI) is convenient and avoids a post office visit. Registering a My Number for an employee's pension enrollment is not standardized across wards: in some, the number is entered into the jūminhyō right at address registration (on request/by ticking a box), in others only later after a separate request. The official number (個人番号) can be obtained immediately; the physical card comes later via a separate application. You must explicitly request a jūminhyō "with My Number," since by default the number is often omitted (it's sensitive information, and an ordinary jūminhyō without the number isn't accepted everywhere). Registering a new employee in the pension system without a My Number and pension number right after arrival can, in practice, lead to application refusals; a jūminhyō with My Number can temporarily serve as sufficient documentation, with the actual pension number arriving later by mail after address registration. Registering as a sole proprietor (個人事業) automatically ends the right to be a dependent (依存) under a spouse's insurance, even without exceeding the income threshold. Among company documents needed after registration (法人登記), 履歴事項全部証明書 (also called 登記事項証明書) is the main corporate certificate/registry extract, roughly the business equivalent of a jūminhyō, required almost everywhere (banks, social insurance, the tax office, office leases, etc.); it's printed at any Homukyoku, not just the one where the company is registered, and has a validity period — the recommendation is to get 2-3 copies at once. 登記完了通知, the registration-completion notice, reportedly is no longer issued on paper. Source: https://www.e-tax.nta.go.jp/e-taxsoftweb/e-taxsoftweb_hojin.htm — e-Tax portal for filing an incorporation notice. Source: https://daiverse.com/tools/kanji-to-kana — Converter for Japanese addresses from kanji to katakana.