How Much Tax Will Shitara Have to Pay on His 100 Million Yen NR Bonus? What About Pyeongchang Gold Medalist Takagi?

Huge bonuses are just flying around this week.

On Feb. 28 the Nidec corporation, parent company of Pyeongchang Winter Olympics women's speed skating double gold medalist Nana Takagi's sponsor Nidec Sankyo, announced that it would award her a bonus of 40 million yen (~$378,000 USD) for her gold medals. The JOC and Japan Skating Federation will each award Takagi and additional 10 million yen, bringing her total to 60 million yen (~$568,000 USD).

At almost the same time, on Feb. 26 Tokyo Marathon Yuta Shitara (Honda) received a 100 million yen bonus (~$946,000 USD) from the National Corporate Athletics Federation for setting a new Japanese national record of 2:06:11 at the Feb. 25 Tokyo Marathon.

The million-dollar question is how much tax will they have to pay? Bonuses from the JOC and member organizations, 5 million yen for gold, 2 million for silver, and 1 million for bronze, are tax-exempt. Bonuses from other organizations and sponsors are subject to taxation.

In Takagi's case, this means that she is liable for taxes on the 40 million yen from Nidec, while the remaining 20 million yen is tax-free. In Shitara's case, since the National Corporate Athletics Federation is not a JOC member organization, he must pay tax on the full 100 million yen.

How much will that be? According to Eiji Hitoda, a tax accountant with the Keihan General Accounting Office, Shitara's 100 million will be treated as one-time income. The actual amount due will depend upon a variety of factors, but essentially after a special deduction of 500,000 yen and multiplication of the resulting amount by 0.5, Shitara will have to pay 45% tax on the remaining amount for a total of 22,387,500 yen (~$212,000 USD) due. In addition, he must pay 497,500 yen in resident taxes, bringing his total tax liability to 27,362,500 yen (~$259,000 USD). As a result, his take-home earnings from the bonus will amount to 72,637,500 yen (~$687,000 USD).

The tax liability on Takagi's 40 million yen will be calculated the same way at a rate of 40%, meaning her taxes will total roughly 12 million yen (~$114,000 USD).

Incidentally, National Corporate Athletics Federation stated that athletes who break the Japanese national record in the marathon are only eligible to win the 100 million yen bonus once per year. With the fiscal year ending Mar. 31, Shitara would not receive another bonus if he were to break the national record again before then. However, after the start of the new fiscal year on Apr. 1 he will be eligible to win the 100 million yen bonus again if he breaks his own record in the coming year. If another athlete breaks Shitara's record they will be paid the 100 million yen bonus.

Shitara plans to take time off until April and then begin to ramp back up starting in May. We can look forward to the prospect of him shaving a bit off the record again in the future. The National Corporate Athletics Federation will reward his efforts and those of other athletes with the Project Exceed bonus system until the end of March, 2020.

Translator's note: The numbers above don't include the 4 million yen in prize money or 5 million yen NR bonus he won directly from the Tokyo Marathon or any other unpublished time bonuses, appearance fees or sponsor bonuses. More on his payday here.

source article:
https://www.zakzak.co.jp/spo/news/180302/spo1803020004-n1.html
translated by Brett Larner