SEISEI SERVICES — FAMILY WEALTH
Wealth Architecture for Chinese-Speaking Business Owners in Japan
You run a company in Japan. Assets remain in China. Your family lives here; your heirs are split across borders. Treated as "an inheritance tax problem," this situation almost always attracts the wrong remedy. The real issue is that the ownership structure across the company, the individual and the family was never designed.
This is for you if
- You run a company in Japan and hold most of its shares personally
- Real estate, financial assets and corporate interests are split between Japan and China (or a third country)
- Your spouse and children live in different countries, or hold different residence statuses
- You are approaching ten years of residence in Japan and want to understand when the scope of taxation changes
- You have consulted tax accountants, lawyers and judicial scriveners separately, but no one integrates the whole
When this is not the right service
If a succession has already occurred and the immediate task is filing an inheritance tax return within the deadline, you are better served by a tax accounting firm that specialises in filings. We design structures; we do not prepare or submit tax returns (we can introduce partner tax accountants).
Six questions we work on
Ownership
Who holds what, and through which vehicle — personal name, asset-holding company, holding company, or trust.
Control
Where voting rights sit, and whether economic interest should be separated from control.
Cash Flow
Through which route — remuneration, dividends, rent — funds move, and where they accumulate.
Tax
Where and when a taxable event arises, across Japan, China and third jurisdictions.
Succession
What passes to the next generation, in what order, through which vehicle.
Governance
Who decides, and who coordinates the professionals.
How this differs from a tax firm or a private bank
This is not a choice between them. They operate at different layers.
| Who | What they do | When it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Tax accounting firm (zeirishi) | Tax representation, return preparation, tax computation — reserved by law to licensed professionals | After a taxable event is fixed, or approaching a filing deadline |
| Private bank / securities firm | Management of financial assets | How wealth is grown and preserved |
| SEISEI | Design of the ownership structure itself, across company, individual and family | Before the taxable event, while the structure can still be changed |
Our role is to design the structure and to hold tax accountants, lawyers and judicial scriveners to a single coherent plan. Filings are performed by partner licensed tax accountants, registrations by judicial scriveners, and legal procedures by lawyers — each within their own licence.
How we work
1. Diagnosis
We inventory the financial structure of the company, the individual and the family, and render the present state as a single structural map — identifying risk and opportunity across the six axes.
2. Architecture
We set the current structure beside a target structure and compare them. We also fix, at this stage, which specialists each issue requires.
3. Implementation
Executed together with partner tax accountants, lawyers and judicial scriveners. We remain accountable for the coherence of the whole.
4. Stewardship
The structure is revisited as residence status, domicile, the business and the law change.
Language
We work in Chinese, Japanese and English. Family decisions are rarely made candidly in a second language. The service is designed so that the structure itself can be debated in Chinese, without an interpreter in between.
Frequently asked questions
Is a Japanese tax accountant enough for cross-border succession planning?
Filings must be done by a licensed tax accountant. But where companies, real estate and financial assets are split between Japan and China, the decisive questions arise earlier than the return: who holds what, and through which vehicle. Designing that structure, and coordinating the tax, legal and registration specialists around it, is a different layer from filing work.
Does the inheritance tax "ten-year rule" apply to me?
The scope of taxation turns not on nationality but on the domicile of both the deceased and the heir, the type of residence status, and the number of years of residence in Japan. A person holding a work-type residence status who has been domiciled in Japan for ten years or less within the past fifteen may be treated as a "temporary resident", but permanent residents and spouses of Japanese nationals fall outside that exception. Individual determination requires a licensed professional.
Does setting up a family office in Japan reduce tax?
No. Japan offers no special tax regime for family offices; in substance it is the same as establishing an asset-holding company. The value of a family office in Japan lies not in tax reduction but in governance — integrating multiple entities and external professionals.
Are assets located in China subject to Japanese inheritance tax?
Where the scope of taxation is determined to reach worldwide assets, property located in China can fall within Japanese inheritance tax. Chinese domestic law, automatic exchange of financial account information under CRS, and governing law (succession is in principle governed by the national law of the deceased) all overlap here. The two countries need to be examined as one structure, not separately.
What does it cost?
It depends on the complexity of the structure — the number of entities, jurisdictions and heirs — so we do not publish a fixed schedule. We quote the scope and fee of the initial diagnosis before starting.
Related insights
- China and Japan: which country taxes the estate
- Governing law in the succession of a foreign national
- A family office is not a tax-avoidance device
- The holding company as a structure
- CRS and the reporting of overseas assets
Get in touch
We begin by understanding your present structure. Write to ceo@seisei.tokyo — in Japanese, Chinese or English.
SEISEI provides financial and management consulting. It does not constitute tax representation, preparation of tax documents, or tax consultation as defined in Article 2 of Japan’s Certified Tax Accountant Act. Filings and tax computations are handled by partner licensed tax accountants (zeirishi).