Your study scope is Japanese national corporate tax law (法人税法) for the tax accountant (税理士) examination. The 2026 point document describes a first question and a second question, each labelled 50 points, covering income computation, revenue recognition, benefit received, donation disallowance, director compensation, excessive employee pay, no-personality associations, bad-debt allowances, dividends, entertainment, leases, and related adjustments. The 69th paper is a legacy examination under laws effective 5 April 2019; use it for task style and calculation flow, not as a statement of current detailed rules. Your four topic labels are a study scaffold, not an official current syllabus or weighting, and you must verify current availability, exact format, pass mark, fees, and statutory limits against current official materials; the MCQ sample checks supporting knowledge only, this knowledge preview is not a simulation of the descriptive/calculation examination, and foreign corporations, consolidated groups, and other tax systems are not fully covered here. Use the guide to build a repeatable method: state the fact, classify the item, apply the rule, compute, and explain. The 20 MCQs check supporting knowledge only; they do not simulate the written examination.
Scope, identity, and limits
Japanese national corporate tax law, with clear legacy-source cautions.
Your study scope is Japanese corporate tax law (法人税法) in the tax accountant (税理士) examination. The 2026 point document describes a first question and a second question, each labelled 50 points, and identifies income computation, revenue recognition, benefit received, donation disallowance, director compensation, excessive employee pay, no-personality associations, bad-debt allowances, dividends, entertainment expenses, leases, and related adjustments. Treat the subject as entity-level corporate income tax for a fiscal period, not individual income tax or consumption tax.
The 69th paper is a legacy examination administered under laws effective 5 April 2019. Its two-hour written format and descriptive/calculation tasks are useful for style, but do not rely on its detailed rules as current law. Your four domain labels are a study scaffold, not an official current syllabus. You must check current availability, exact format, pass mark, fees, and statutory amounts against current official materials. The MCQ sample checks supporting knowledge and is not a simulation of the written paper.
Jurisdiction is Japanese national tax. Within the supplied excerpt, domestic corporations and no-personality associations are discussed; foreign corporations and consolidated groups are not fully covered. Do not transfer a rule from one entity status to another without checking the facts.
What the written exam actually tests
Issue spotting, statutory classification, computation, and concise explanation.
The exam is not a memory quiz about account titles. It asks you to identify the transaction, select the governing treatment, apply it to numbers, and explain the result concisely. The 2026 point repeatedly frames the task as understanding a flow: accounting records, statutory adjustment, taxable income, and tax liability.
Three skills recur. First, issue spotting: find the item that changes taxable income. Second, classification: decide whether a receipt is revenue or excluded, and whether a payment is deductible, limited, or added back. Third, computation and communication: show add-backs and subtractions, calculate limits, reconcile timing differences, and state why.
For preparation, practise short answers with three moves: (1) state the fact and amount; (2) state the rule in statutory terms; (3) apply it and give the adjusted figure. For calculation questions, label every line as add-back, subtraction, permanent difference, or timing difference. This makes partial credit easier and exposes mistakes.
Priority map and study triage
Prioritise mechanisms that recur across many fact patterns.
Prioritise mechanisms that recur across many facts: the bridge from accounting profit to taxable income; permanent versus timing differences; related-party status; director compensation; dividend exclusion; bad-debt allowances; entertainment classification; tax accruals; and leases or capital refunds. Give lower priority to isolated rates or thresholds that the materials do not establish.
Build a one-page map with four columns: item, accounting treatment, tax treatment, and reason. Put the highest-frequency items at the top: fines and penalties, corporate tax expense, excess depreciation, donations, entertainment, dividends, director bonuses, and related-party transfers. Use official question structure to test the map, not to memorise old numbers.
Do not import a number from a prior exam into a current answer unless the question supplies it or the current law is verified. The supplied 2026 point gives themes and question weights but not every current limit. The 69th paper gives a concrete older fact pattern. Treat both as evidence about style and scope, not as a complete current rulebook.
Mechanism: accounting profit to taxable income
Start with accounting profit, then add back and subtract with labels.
Start with accounting profit after all expenses, then adjust. Add back expenses that tax law does not recognise or allows only within a limit: fines, tax expense itself, excess donations, nondeductible director pay, and excess entertainment. Subtract receipts excluded from gross income, such as qualifying dividends, and subtract favourable timing differences such as tax depreciation above book depreciation. Reverse the direction when tax depreciation is lower than book depreciation.
Worked scenario, using illustrative figures only. A corporation has accounting profit after tax of 12,000. It recorded a 300 fine; entertainment of 900 where the supplied case allows 500; accounting depreciation of 1,000 against tax depreciation of 1,200; an excluded dividend of 400; and corporate tax expense of 1,500. The bridge is: 12,000 + 300 fine + 400 excess entertainment - 200 extra tax depreciation - 400 dividend + 1,500 tax expense = 13,600 taxable income. If the question supplies a 25% rate for arithmetic, tentative tax is 3,400 before credits. The rate and limits are case data, not claims about current law.
Check direction. An add-back increases taxable income. An exclusion or extra deduction decreases it. A timing difference reverses in a later period; a permanent difference does not. The corporate tax liability is not deductible, so an accrual for current tax is added back when it has reduced accounting profit.
Mechanism: classifying receipts and payments
Classify by legal character and relationship, not by ledger name.
Classify by legal character, not by ledger name. Fines and penalties are typically added back. Taxes need separation between deductible taxes and non-deductible items such as tax penalties or the corporate tax itself. Director compensation is deductible only within the properly determined framework; excessive employee pay and disguised distributions require separate analysis. Donations are tested against a limit. Dividends from related companies may be excluded to reduce double taxation.
For bad debts, distinguish individually evaluated receivables from general or lump-sum evaluated receivables. The available material notes that a small corporation may have a special allowance within a certain amount, and that the limit is computed separately for the two categories. Do not invent the percentage or cap. For entertainment, examine the facts: customer travel, awards, and payments to drivers or tour conductors may be treated differently depending on nature and circumstances.
For related-party transfers, first draw the ownership and status map. The 2026 point describes a below-fair-value transfer where the seller recognises fair-value revenue and corresponding cost, then considers donation disallowance. If the buyer is an individual officer or employee, the benefit may be salary rather than a donation; classify the individual as officer, dual-role officer, or specially related employee, then test the director-pay or excessive-pay rule. For corporate groups, deferral and exclusion rules depend on whether the common shareholder is an individual or a corporation and on complete control.
Mechanism: tax accruals, credits, and entries
Separate the tax charge from the return adjustment and reconcile payments.
Compute the current tax charge separately from the tax return adjustment. Start with tax on taxable income, subtract tax credits, then subtract interim payments already made. The remainder is the year-end payable. The tax expense in the accounts is an accounting charge; it does not reduce taxable income.
Worked entry, illustrative only. Tax before credits is 3,000; credits are 200; interim payments are 1,200. Net current tax expense is 2,800, and the year-end payable is 1,600. Conceptually: debit corporate tax expense 2,800; credit interim tax payments 1,200; credit corporate tax payable 1,600. If an opening tax payable is settled, record that settlement separately against cash. Do not net the opening liability into the current-year expense without following the facts.
A tax accrual reduces accounting profit but is added back for tax. A provisional payment is not a deduction; it is a prepayment of the same liability. When the question gives an opening accrual, current accrual, and payments, reconcile the liability account first, then compute the tax expense and payable. This prevents double counting.
Professional judgment, documentation, and red flags
Evidence first, then statutory classification, then a stated risk.
Professional judgment begins with evidence. For a questionable expense, obtain the contract, approval record, invoice, payment evidence, and business purpose. Match the facts to the statutory category. Oral approval after year-end, missing invoices, payments to related persons, unusual below-market transfers, and lump-sum payments without allocation are red flags.
For director and related-party payments, identify the recipient's status and the approval process. A benefit to an individual officer may be salary, not a donation. A corporate group may need a complete-control analysis before applying deferral or exclusion. For no-personality associations, the materials highlight commencement notification and separate accounting for profit-making business; record-keeping failures can affect tax treatment and benefits.
Communicate uncertainty as a risk, not as a deduction. State what is known, what is missing, and what condition would change the answer. This is also good exam technique: a conclusion without the governing reason is weak, and a computation without labels is hard to mark.
Integrated practice task and self-check rubric
Compute a labelled bridge and explain it in statutory terms.
Task. X Co. is a domestic corporation. Accounting profit after charging all items is 50,000. It recorded a 300 fine; a 2,000 director bonus without the required approval; entertainment 1,500 with an assumed deductible cap of 600; donations 800 with an assumed cap of 200; a 1,200 dividend from a wholly owned subsidiary; a 2,500 corporate tax accrual; and accounting depreciation 3,000 against tax depreciation 3,400. Assume all other items are correct. Compute taxable income, identify each adjustment as permanent or timing, and write a short explanation.
Model answer. Add back the fine 300, the director bonus 2,000, excess entertainment 900, excess donations 600, and the tax accrual 2,500. Subtract the dividend 1,200 and the extra tax depreciation 400. Taxable income is 50,000 + 300 + 2,000 + 900 + 600 - 1,200 + 2,500 - 400 = 54,700. The fine, bonus, entertainment, donations, dividend, and tax accrual are permanent or exclusion items; depreciation is a timing difference. The answer must say that the caps and approval facts are assumptions supplied for practice.
Self-check rubric, five points: (1) all seven items identified; (2) each item classified as add-back, subtraction, permanent, or timing; (3) arithmetic reconciled; (4) reasons use statutory concepts, not account titles alone; (5) missing facts and assumptions stated. A score of 5/5 requires a clean bridge and a short, non-contradictory explanation. If any item is unlabelled, revise before moving to a timed answer.
Study sequence and common errors
Use short cycles, an error log, and auditable answers.
Use six cycles. Cycle 1: build the one-page map and learn the taxable-income bridge. Cycle 2: drill classification of payments and receipts with short reasons. Cycle 3: drill computations for depreciation, donations, entertainment, dividends, and tax accruals, always with labels. Cycle 4: write two-page explanations of related-party and director-compensation scenarios. Cycle 5: complete one integrated timed task from the guide and one legacy task for structure only. Cycle 6: review an error log and redo only missed mechanisms.
Common errors: treating an accounting expense as automatically deductible; forgetting to add back the corporate tax expense; confusing a timing difference with a permanent difference; applying a donation or entertainment limit without the facts; ignoring the recipient's status in a related-party payment; using a legacy rule as current law; and stating a precise rate or threshold that the question did not supply.
A good answer is auditable. Another person should be able to follow the fact, rule, computation, and conclusion. If you cannot explain why an item is added back or subtracted, stop and return to the mechanism.
References and further reading
Use these references to explore the concepts and check the latest information from the relevant organizations.