politics

DPJ says it will announce proposal on consumption tax hike in December

9 Comments

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan will unveil a new proposal by mid-December on raising the consumption tax, an aide to Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Thursday. The proposal is being worked out by two DPJ panels tasked with tax and social security reforms, TBS reported.

The two panels have been discussing the issue since summer. The rate of the tax increase is expected to be 10% by 2015, TBS quoted DPJ sources as saying. A bill on the issue is expected to be submitted to the Diet by early spring.

There has been strong opposition to a consumption tax hike both among lawmakers and industry groups who say it will have a negative effect on the Japanese economy. However, the Finance Ministry says that if there is no tax hike, the nation's social security coffers will fall short by 2.7 trillion yen in 2016.

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9 Comments
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Make a flat tax for all Japanese to pay, nationalize health insurance 100%, reform system for payments to pension and health care (ie. automatically removed from everyone's paycheques regardless of hours worked) so everyone can be covered and does pay (something). Do away with car-service tax (shakken), and lower rural residential taxes. If they simply raise the consumption tax they'll be taking from an already drained well.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

reform system for payments to pension and health care (ie. automatically removed from everyone's paycheques regardless of hours worked) so everyone can be covered and does pay (something).

How would that work for people who are freelance or self-employed? For example, I get paid by multiple companies every month. Would each company take the full amount for pension and health insurance out of the money they send me, so that I'd be paying three or four times the standard rate? For some reason, that doesn't appeal. Would they have to coordinate with each other to check what percentage of the total they were paying, and deduct accordingly? So totally unconnected private companies would be looking into my bank account each month, seeing what others were putting in there and learning how much work I was doing for other people? That doesn't appeal, either.

Flat taxes put too great a burden on the lower-paid. They are not a good idea. Neither is a high consumption tax, especially at a time when you really need consumption to rise, not fall.

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Wow a 10% tax hike? That's a lot. Hope that is not on food, and medicine. Oh, I feel pain for you guys.

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Wonder how much of our taxes are wasted on repaving roads that were just repaved months ago? Wonder how much all the waste is and if those funds (if they were saved) would offset this tax hike?

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Global watcher. Numbers wrong.

10% of 5% would be nice. They want the 5% to go to 10%. And yes they will tax food and meds, and my flu shot I got this morning.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

And yes they will tax food and meds, and my flu shot I got this morning.

Thanks for the info. That's immoral. How long are you guys putting up with this?

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Before proposing this tax hike over Japanese citizens, J gov needs to do a serious hair cut.

How about cutting a 20% payroll over all politicians and bureaucrats? Balancing budget ONLY works by spending cut and raising revenues. Japan has too much sovereign dept that is not funny. Isn't it a common sense, Japan?

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Comon sense is not in the dictionary Global Watcher. Common sense finds end points. That is an unknown in this country.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

In the UK consumption tax, known there as VAT was 17.5% in 2008 and was raised to 20% during the economic crisis. VAT is not paid on food, childrens clothes or books and newspapers. Industry and business can claim back VAT. This is just food for thought, not an arguement about the merits or demerits of the UK system as opposed to the system in Japan.

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