A public service will begin Thursday allowing people to file tax returns and apply for passports over the Internet.
To use the service, individuals must go to municipal offices to have integrated-circuit cards store their names and other personal data as well as coding software.
Tax offices in Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi and Mie prefectures will begin to accept tax returns under the service in February and other offices in the rest of Japan will follow starting in June.