I paid several million yen in taxes last year but that was because my idiot company kept me in the US for 5 months of the year . This year I ' m going to have to deal with tax equalization which basically means since they paid millions of yen in taxes on my behalf because I was there on business it counts as income and goes on my income statement . So they have to look at my income for this year , figure out what I would have made , take that amount out of my taxes , then pay the real amount I owe . Wash rinse repeat for a few years until things finally hit close enough to 0 to not worry about it because the extra taxes they pay on my behalf this year are that ' s right additional income counted next year .