1. Accounting(CGS Guidelines Amended)
The METI, or Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, amended the “Practical Guidelines for Corporate Governance Systems (CGS Guidelines)” in Sep. 2018.
In this amendment, the correction related to president/CEO nomination and the success plan for companies are worthy of attention. As a background, people recognize the significance of the president’s roles, and the personal ability of making high executive decisions. The importance of CEO invitation has grown dramatically.
METI has announced the release of a brochure on ”Viewpoints for Planning and Utilization of President/CEO Succession for Company”, which includes ordinal steps for planning, sharing and defining the roles of inside-directors and outside-directors, and the importance of documentation through these succession plans. It also describes some cases undertaken by advanced efforts.
2. Tax (JAPAN Engaging in BEPS)
Sep.26 2018: The government of Japan deposited the Instrument of Acceptance of “Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” before the Secretary-General of the OECD. Accordingly, this multilateral convention will come into force from Jan.1, 2019, and will be applied to the tax treaties concluded between Japan and the nations below on this date;
・Israel
・United Kingdom
・Sweden
・New Zealand
・Poland
The application of the multilateral convention to tax treaties concluded between Japan and nations other than the above will follow. Attention should be payed to the movement of nations in respect of ratification of this multilateral convention.
3. Labor Management (Changes to supporting documents for Health Insurance dependent verification)
Effective October 1, 2018, the government-managed Health Insurance requires supporting documents for verification of dependent eligibility of a resident family member.
Before this change, a dependent claim was approved based on the application of the insured person. From October 1 onwards, family relationship and supporting status, etc. are verified based on the related certificates.
Examples of supporting documents:
（1） Verification of family relationship to the insured employee.Transcript or extract of Family Register. Certificate of Residence
(Only if the dependent lives together with the insured employee and the insured employee is the head of the household.)
（2）Verification of income.Document showing annual income, such as taxation certificate, etc.
In cases where a dependent lives separately, documents such as a certificate of money transfer, etc. are required in addition to the two documents above to verify that the insured employee is supporting the dependent’s living. However, these supporting documents can be omitted if certain conditions are met.(Source: Japan Pension Service “Changes to administrative procedure for Health Insurance dependent verification”)
4. This Month’s Words of Wisdom
Fireworks:Should we watch them from the side or from the bottom
Nobel Medicine Prize was awarded in part to Mr. Tasuku Honjo, a Distinguished Professor at Kyoto University. Now the number of Japanese Nobel Prize laureates is 27, including 7 Kyoto Univ. graduates. On the other hand, Kyoto Univesity is rated the 65th in the Global University Ranking 2019 (according to The Times Higher Education Supplement).
A university has two missions, “Education and Research”, I think. How many universities which are rated higher than Kyoto have had more Nobel-winners than Kyoto? So, on what standard should universities be ranked? We should be careful to so-called “the ranking”; who is doing for what purpose.
For more details, please refer to Nagamine & Mishima JC Accounting K.K.
