whimsy wrote:

Wouldn't one of the important external factors with regard to the 
marriage be some law about transferring property tax free to children at 
time of marriage?  So the marriage both unites the schools and transfers 
the dojo.  How long would Ranma and Nabiki need to stay married for the 
transfer to be considered legitimate?  I would guess at least a year. 
 Does anyone know any details about the law and the minimum time to stay 
married?  Is any of this even of any concern to RaeMowse?  

Part of an author's note from one of my stories:

I was interested, so I checked out a few law sites to see what
was the deal with  Japanese taxes. Turns out that when a parent dies,
50% of the  property goes to the surviving parent, and 50% is
divided equally  among the children. It used to be that the 50% went
to just the  oldest son, but that was changed eventually. The other
50% goes  to the children on the death of the remaining parent. Each 50%
the children get is subject to an inheritance tax, and that tax
is 70% of the value of the property; an estate with a house is
often as much as $350,000 American for just that 50%! Many Japanese
wind up losing the family home on the death of a parent if they
can't get a loan to cover the tax. You can see that an estate
like the Tendos are supposed to have would have a horrendous tax.
Now, there is a way provided to help folks avoid losing the family
home other than taking out a loan. The estate can be given to
a couple on their marriage; they are then liable for a gift tax
on the estate. The gift tax can be as low as 10% for property
worth less than 1.5 million yen, and as high as 70% for property
worth 100 million yen or more. One spouse can claim a basic deduction
from that tax of 600,000 yen, and the other can claim a spouse
allowance deduction of 20 million yen. The catch is that the spouse
allowance can only be claimed once in the person's life,
and they must remain married for at least 20 years.

             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'