FreedomTax Japan (FTJ) is a tax portal for American citizens living in Japan. Its standout design decision is sequence: Japanese taxes are completed first, and that information then ports into the American tax section, making filing easier on both the business and the customer side.

Before the application existed, the team was overwhelmed with effectively unlimited inquiries about tax complications in Japan, and payment wasn't collected until taxes were actually filed. That combination meant the client was absorbing a large volume of unpaid work — fielding "free consultations" that often didn't convert.

The real user problem: opacity, not just complexity

For an American freelancer living in Japan, the hardest part of taxes isn't the math — it's the language barrier that makes the entire system opaque. A typical freelancer doesn't necessarily know that filing and payment are separate obligations with separate deadlines, and missing that distinction has real consequences. The portal's job isn't only to collect tax information; it's to make an unfamiliar, non-native-language system legible — being explicit and unambiguous about what is due, when, and whether it's a filing date or a payment date. Removing that ambiguity is a core part of the product's value, not a surface detail.

What the application changed for the business

Launching the portal moved payment upfront while still letting people register and experience the ease of use before committing further. This significantly decreased the manual workload that had previously come from a constant stream of free-consultation requests. The model is intentionally bounded: users are required to fill in as much as they can themselves, and one consultation is included in the fee — turning an open-ended support burden into a defined, paid scope.

My role in development

I participated in user testing and provided regular monthly feedback on the application's features. Worked directly with FTJ's Product Development team give hands-on user feedback on the following User Flows:

• Sign Up & Login, Password Reset

• Adding Income (Salary, Self-Employment, Rental, Other)

• Adding Business Expenses

• Adding Investment & Cyptocurrency Income

• Important Dates & Milestones