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The story
As livestreaming has grown in popularity, the “tipping” (gifting) market has expanded rapidly. Beyond small payments meant to show support, there are now cases of people pouring in tens of millions to hundreds of millions of yen, and even incidents where viewers’ romantic feelings for streamers spiral into real trouble. The topic, covered on ABEMA Prime, sparked a flurry of reactions on 5ch, with users debating how tipping income should be taxed, how it differs from charitable giving, and the psychology behind spending huge sums on someone you only see through a screen. Calls to “tax it as business income” clashed with calls to “lower the tax rate on investment income instead,” and opinion split over whether tipping counts as an act of charity or a business built on people’s craving for validation.
Published 10/31 (Sat) 11:12
ABEMA TIMES
With the spread of livestreaming services that let anyone broadcast or watch using just a smartphone, the “tipping” (gifting) market has been expanding. Beyond small payments made to show support, there are cases where people pour in tens of millions to hundreds of millions of yen, and troubles have arisen — including incidents stemming from viewers’ romantic feelings toward streamers. Why do people spend huge sums of money on someone they only see through a screen? “ABEMA Prime” featured guests from both sides — those who receive tips and those who send them — to examine how the platforms work and what lies behind the troubles.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
This basically means a tax hike
Can't be helped
They really should tax tipping income
Stocks get taxed 20%, so they should take the same or more here
This counts as business income, so of course it's taxable
Once the total gets big enough, 20% won't even cover it
Why does everyone jump straight to 'let's raise taxes on that too and make everyone miserable together' instead of thinking about lowering the tax rate on investment income?
blowing it all on Super Chat (YouTube's paid-comment tipping feature) basically makes you a slave to Google
You end up the exploited digital tenant farmer
Same deal with mobile gacha games
Blowing cash on merch I could at least understand
If you pay a big enough tip, the streamer reads your comment out loud and thanks you for it
For fans who tip, the streamer is basically a celebrity to them
That alone probably makes them incredibly happy
Miscellaneous income?
They're doing it continuously as their job, so it's business income lol
I get it — I used to send postcards to radio shows back in the day
I guess it's that feeling of helping build the show together
The really skilled postcard writers (regular radio-show contributors) were genuinely good at it
The same people who used to buy piles of crappy AKB48 CDs for handshake tickets just moved online, and that's how this garbage system took hold
Hostess clubs or soaplands (brothels) are more wholesome than this lol
Both of those at least give you something tangible back
Online tipping gives you literally nothing
This is starting to look a lot like the host club business
Hosts and hostesses are getting in on it too
TikTok has the most of this among livestreaming platforms
Ah, so that's it
No wonder tipping battles break out then
If so, donate to something more worthwhile
Also, Japan's tax code seems to reward donations a lot less than the US does
Isn't it weird to expect something back from a donation in the first place
It's meant to encourage giving
Rather than having it taken as tax and spent however politicians and bureaucrats feel like, a donation lets you decide where your money goes
I don't get why people demand purity here
Whatever the giver's motive, if it works out fine in the end
who cares whether they wanted something back or did it out of pure good will
The platform takes more than half, so that math doesn't work
Exactly — that's why tipping is really a donation with no return, isn't it
People who tip aren't donating because they expect some separate reward
and they're not asking for a tax deduction either
Of course they know — tax already gets withheld the moment the streaming site pays out
Well, people complain about being broke, but if you're not married and don't have kids, a normal job still leaves you with money to spare
I think society as a whole would improve if donations with public benefit were made more rewarding to give
If the person receiving the tip money goes and spends it, doesn't that improve society too
No, no, no, come on lol
That's about as twisted as saying 'buying a lottery ticket is basically a welfare donation!'
If that's the logic, just donate straight up instead
(´・ω・｀) (a deflated, deadpan emoticon face)
There are kids who look like they're in the early grades of elementary school streaming in swimsuits late at night — somebody needs to shut this down
Agreed, it's needed. Some sites don't even withhold tax, so unreported income in the tens of millions of yen is rampant. Though just because tax was withheld doesn't mean you're off the hook for filing a return, either.
Background and key points of this discussion
On most platforms, tipping (gifting) works by having the operator deduct roughly half of the amount received as a fee, so streamers actually take home less than what was sent. In practice, tips a streamer earns on an ongoing basis are treated as taxable income — business income or miscellaneous income — under Japan’s income tax law, so the thread’s debate over “whether it should be taxed” needs to be read with the understanding that it’s already taxable. Opinion in the thread split between those defending tipping as something close to a charitable act, and those arguing that since tippers get something back — their comment read aloud, a thank-you — it’s fundamentally different from a donation. This echoes a longer history of “low-reward support spending,” like sending postcards to radio shows or buying AKB48 merchandise for handshake tickets, with tipping positioned as the internet era’s extension of that same tradition.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Huge sums fly in “tipping battles” — one person has sunk ¥400 million total, another has fallen hard for a female streamer: why do people spend big money on someone on the other side of a screen?“
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