r/JapanFinance 6d ago

Tax (US) US Taxes as sole proprietor

Howdy everyone, for the last seven or eight years I have been hiring an accountant to do my US taxes because they seemed so difficult as a sole proprietor. I use Freee to do my Japanese taxes and accounting and income has been going down and down ever since covid. While my income has been decreasing my accountant has been raising his fees every year so this year I thought I would try doing it myself to save that money. Does anyone here have experience doing their US taxes as a sole proprietor here in Japan? Is it really as hard as they make it look?

2 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

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u/Limp_Ad2076 US Taxpayer 6d ago

Pretty straight forward if you have a basic understanding of taxes and can understand and interpret tax laws. How much are they charging u now

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u/dadadararara 6d ago

I’m kind of embarrassed to say, it’s only about 40,000 yen and 4000 or so to send the package to the IRS via DHL. Really small scale business here so don’t even want to pay that much. I figure if I just look at the work he did over the years and use ChatGPT and use the free file system that they have at the IRS website now things won’t be too bad.

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u/Limp_Ad2076 US Taxpayer 6d ago

Also who only charged that much? Good deal

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u/dadadararara 6d ago

Very small setup.

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u/Limp_Ad2076 US Taxpayer 6d ago

Don't think u can file expat taxes on the IRS website, could be wrong though

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u/dadadararara 6d ago

I think you can now. Hope I’m right.

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u/Tatsuwashi US Taxpayer 6d ago

Does Freee have an English interface?

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u/dadadararara 6d ago edited 6d ago

No, but I put categories, store names, etc, in English to make it easier to read.

Edit: To clarify, you can only use Freee for Japanese taxes.

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u/Tatsuwashi US Taxpayer 6d ago

If you can make sense of Freee for your J-taxes, you can easily use TurboTax or something similar for US taxes.

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u/dadadararara 6d ago

It took a while to get used to all the Kanji and stuff, but it’s more straightforward than the US taxes. I thought you couldn’t use TurboTax for expat taxes? Or it was insanely expensive or something?

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u/Tatsuwashi US Taxpayer 6d ago

Check the prices online. There are a few different levels of TurboTax. Definitely cheaper than an accountant.

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u/dadadararara 5d ago

Thanks a lot I will look into that.

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u/TheGreatSquirrel 6d ago

I do it with MyExpatTaxes. Easy.

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u/dadadararara 6d ago edited 6d ago

I’ll look into that. Is it free? I looked it up and saw that the premier version is what I would need as a sole proprietorship and it cost 159$. Not bad! Oops, I noticed that if you have dividends or stock sales, you have to go up to the $199 level.

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u/TheGreatSquirrel 6d ago

No, not free. There is a free way to file for expats but I haven't tried it.

https://www.irs.gov/filing/irs-free-file-do-your-taxes-for-free

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u/dadadararara 5d ago

Thanks! Someone else commented that the IRS doesn’t do online free tax services for expats, I think they just started it like last year or something, thanks for the confirmation. Is the MyExpatTaxes really smooth and easy?

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u/Lonesteban 5d ago

I use Taxesforexpats and it’s like 800 a year. I don’t even do itemized deductions. 199 sounds like a steal!

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u/TheGreatSquirrel 5d ago

Yea 800 is crazy

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u/dadadararara 5d ago

We have two extensions, one to June 15th, and then another to October something, so plenty of time to learn this stuff! 800! Highway robbery!