My papa (a business owner) currently gives me a monthly allowance. He told me he’s going to set up another company, make me the president, and pay my allowance as executive compensation. Is it safe to go along with this?

Normally, if the goal is to treat something as a business expense, they would hire you as an employee of the other company and pay you a salary—not make you the president of a separate company. The unusual part here is the decision to deliberately create another company. There are all kinds of possibilities. For example, the tax accountant may be leading you into it because adding another company means higher fees for them. And realistically, a small company with little business activity is unlikely to be audited by the tax authorities. Maybe they’re planning to create fake transactions with the existing company to transfer money and increase their spending money. The new company’s expense budget would give them more money they could use freely. In the worst-case scenario, perhaps they went bankrupt in the past and have no credibility with the banks, so they plan to establish a company in your name, take out loans, and then have it go bankrupt when the time comes. I know someone who has dozens of figurehead presidents working for him under that kind of scheme. Several of them are women involved in papa-katsu, and in some cases he’s even had them bear his children to keep them under his control. Apparently, when you have dozens of companies, you can make them appear profitable through fake transactions at each settlement, so it’s surprisingly difficult to detect. That’s about all I can think of for now. If anyone can come up with other possible scenarios, please share them.

Wouldn’t it be better to pass on this one? If it were me, I’d decline and quietly look for someone else as a backup.

> You’d have to quit your current job, too. Hmm? You can become the company’s president without quitting your current job, right? I think you should ask whether you can take on the role while keeping your current job. If this is just a company and presidency set up so they can pay you an allowance, I don’t think you should quit your current job. If it were a serious business, they probably wouldn’t be talking about paying your allowance out of the company. Also, how many percent of the shares would you own? I assume the other person would hold 100% of the shares. If so, you’d be president in name only, with no real authority. And if you have no authority, the shareholder can dismiss you as an officer. In other words, they could fire you whenever they wanted, entirely at their discretion. I don’t see much benefit in putting yourself in that position. If you think it’s dangerous to hand control over to the other person, you should demand at least 51% of the shares. If they say that’s not possible, I think you should turn it down. Generally, an allowance is paid directly out of the other person’s pocket instead of going through all these complicated steps. Also, you’ll have to provide the other person with all kinds of personal information in order to become president, which could make it difficult to get away if they ever try to blackmail you. This sounds extremely dangerous, so I think you should think it over carefully. There are a lot of red flags here.

Tell him you want 10 million yen upfront since you’re quitting your current job. Adjust the amount depending on how difficult it’ll be to find new employment. Ask for it. If he’s willing to pay, you might consider accepting the arrangement.

If you have to ask strangers—especially through an anonymous question box—I don’t think it’s okay. You’re probably posting because you yourself feel that something is wrong. There are a lot of prank submissions, so questions aren’t displayed immediately. They’re published only after a moderator reviews them.