Hey, blog. It’s me. Yes, me.

I’m just here to say that I’m alive and I’ve actually done something productive for the month.

It’s tax season, and I’ve managed to finish both my Japanese and US taxes, hallelujah! Or, I’ve filed them electronically. I’m just waiting for confirmation that I did everything right.

As usual, it was a struggle navigating through the Japanese one because of the language and the vocabulary. I did it electronically through the Japanese government’s e-tax website. It wasn’t too bad, but I must say that the government does not like mac operating system because it wouldn’t let me through the portal. It took a while to figure out that my browser was incompatible so I had to use my husband’s computer.

Throughout the process, my primary method was just to click on something until it worked and took me to the pages that “looked” right. I tapped in the numbers, the information I got from my employer, and the documents I got from the government and if I managed to get through the next phase without an error message, I called it a victory.

Oh, and I had a tab open to the Google translate page and copy-pasted most of the paragraphs and words I couldn’t read. It seemed to have worked because I’m getting a refund…maybe.

Which leads me to the next thing I accomplished, I did the My Number Card Points thing and got the 20,000 ponts that will supposedly translate into ¥20,000—I think. I signed up using the PayPay, the My Number Portal, and the My Number Point. Yeah, I know, so smooth, right? Three damned apps just to get it. Hopefully, the points really will end up usable as cash. I will try to pay for some stuff using these points. I’m still dubious if it will really work, but it can’t hurt to try.

And I only did it because I think the tax filing procedure said that I can only get my refund if I fill out the bank information through the My Number portal and through my card. I don’t get the reasoning and why I have to go through those steps, but I filled everything out just to make sure.

I still think I have several steps to finalize before things really are complete. But the important part is that I have a record saying I filed my taxes and I have a confirmation number and code for my documents. I’m in the system, basically. I have a feeling that this time, though, I might have to pop into the ward office just to make sure that everything is okay.

I avoided physically going into the tax office these past few years by doing everything electronically, but this year, I think they made some changes that through off the whole process. It was definitely different from the last couple times I did my taxes. Filing this year was both smooth and confusing at the same time. Smoother because my previous information was stored in the system, but confusing because of the extra steps I had to go though that involved that damned My Number Card.

But because getting the points was only until the end of February, I felt rushed to make sure I could get them. I mean, it’s supposed to be free money. That’s ¥20,000 right there for groceries or for paying bills.

And since I was able to file everything and got all my information organized, I just piggy-backed off that and filled out my US taxes. Luckily, since everything was in English and the website for the service I used was easy to navigate, it didn’t hurt as much as before. I might even say it was actually really smooth…until I got to the end and messed up something. Now I am waiting for an email to come through to make sure that I did everything right and corrected whatever oopsie I made on the tax forms.

I’m hoping to be back next week with a clearer status of my tax situation.