Payment of taxes to hometown - Wednesday, 24 Oct. 2018

I tried using payment of taxes to hometown system this week. It is called ふるさと納税 (Furusato nozei).

If you donate to the hometown with this system, you can reduce taxes by donated amount minus 2000 yen, and get thank you gift from donated hometown. In other words, you can buy the thank you gift only by 2000 yen. There are many kind of thank you gifts. For example, high quality meat, salmon roe, crab, vegetables, fruits, and so on.

The system name includes "hometown", but it does not limit destination of donation to hometown. Everyone can donate any cities in Japan if the city provides the system.

I donated to four cities, which are Fukuoka, Okinawa, Kagoshima and Yamagata. I'll get gift that are Gyoza, Kintsuba, sweet potato and hamburg steak. Kintsuba is one of Japanese traditional sweets. Kintsuba is generally made of anko (anko is a kind of bean paste. It is sweet.), but the kintsuba is made of sweet potato. It is called Satsuma-Kintsuba sometimes.