This Week in Freebies

We are definitely rolling into November. The nights are cooling down quite nicely... and so is the house. Last night we slept in a balmy 10C/50F house. We needed an extra blanket for that one! .... speaking of which.. I need to go and pull out the futon kansoki for Mayu so that she can heat her side of the bed up as the sheets do get quite chilly. I'll be right back...

This week was a great week for "freebies", let me tell you!

After the gym yesterday, I was at Y Plaza shopping for groceries (exhorbitantly expensive, thankyouverymuch). I ran across our neighbour across the street from our old house in Sanno. She works in the food preparation section of the supermarket. She waved and smiled. I waved and smiled.

A little later on she came up to me and told me that a lot of their autumn vegetables were ready and asked if I would like some. Well, never to turn down food of any kind I whole-heartedly accepted her kind offer of vegetables. We agreed that I would pop by their house in the early evening, around 6pm or so.

Thanks to her kind offer I was able to return the broccoli and daikon to the produce department save a few hundred yen on an otherwise ridiculous grocery bill (nothing was on sale, nothing near expiry).

I made it home in good time and was doing a few things around the house when the doorbell rang about 5pm. It was Mr. Ito and he was delivering the vegetables that his wife had talked to me about earlier that day! How nice of him to do so! For the entire time we have been living here in Kamishii-mura they have been giving us vegetables all summer (eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes), and in the autumn and winter (daikon, broccoli, etc.)

This summer, because I suffered from the shingles and really haven't yet fully recovered, I never got around to visiting them, or receiving any vegetables from them in exchange for wonderful conversation. It is a shame because they grow so many that they really do appreciate it when we come and help them decrease their vegetable load. On this day Mr. Ito dropped off a beautiful healthy head of cabbage, along with three perfectly formed daikon radishes, two ears of broccoli, and several carrots.

Those fresh, organic vegetables were a very nice treat to receive.

For Free!!!!!

In addition to that nice surprise, all day Monday, and all day Tuesday I had the Japanese Tax Agency inspecting me! They grilled me, and dug up absolutely everything one might imagine from the kimono sales for Cam2PR, to my Paypal account. They even asked me to print out my Etsy online Store for proof that I am conducting an online business.

The went all the way back to when I started working for myself, namely 2003, and asked me a great deal of questions while pouring over every little detail of my invoices, and my bank books, as well as my investment statements from both Japan, and those received as inheritence from my grandparents. It was probably one of the most stressful days of my life, as anyone who has been inspected by the "IRS" will know. My entire body has been on ultra-high alert this entire month because I was informed at the very beginning of the month, that this inspection would take place at the very end.

What a long month!

In the end, they found some things that they said I really cannot deduct as expenses, like my MBA degree... which does seem strange to me because in order to be a consultant to management teams, one needs to understand management business, therefore taking an MBA for this purpose would make perfect sense. Of course were I an English teacher and took an MBA, I could very well understand that it would most likely not be business-related in a direct sense.

They also gave me a good indication of the actual amount of deduction I can use from my rent, utilities, gasoline, etc. based on the ratio of business:private use of space in our home, and non-work life.

They found where I had missed (accidentally... of course, I'm innocent!) a zero on recording one of my invoices for my revenue.

They found a few other things that they told me are not recognized as tax-deductable. Then they also pointed out that I accidentally overstated my earnings by about $15,000 in 2006.

So, in the end, they said that my overstatement, and my understatement kind of balanced out (not really, but...) and that they would leave it at that. The tax gestapo then packed away their stuff, took their bazillion photocopies of my documents, told my accountant they would call him for a formal final assessment ... and left.

And that was it!

The stress over the few days before and those couple of days was so intense that I had an extremely difficult time BEing. Thank goodness I was able to breathe, and be somewhat the observer of my thoughts, because had I not been practicing this since January, and without the absolutely wonderful support from friends, keeping me calm and cool, I swear the nervousness would have sent me over the edge! As it is, I lost a few pounds because my stomach simply did not want food for a few days (as often happens when my stress levels skyrocket). Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

But... what I want to say, is that since it ended (with a nice big triple shot of the best bourbon in the world after the second day of grilling), I was able to have a shift.

Instead of the tax gestapo coming and inspecting my ass off... what I got was three tax specialists for an entire full two days to inspect every single record of my business over the past five years and tell me exactly what I can and cannot do must and must not do in order to meet the tax laws of this country.

For Free!!!!!!

Talk about a week of freebies!

I love you.

Cam