A subcommittee of the government's Tax Commission will dispatch a mission on a 12-day tour of four nations to study financial taxation systems abroad as part of efforts to prepare by year's end an interim report on revising Japan's financial taxes for fiscal 1998.
The five-member team is to visit Britain, Belgium, Switzerland and the United States from Sept. 14 for talks with financial and taxation authorities, Finance Ministry officials said Friday.
The subcommittee restarted deliberations on reforming financial taxation in line with the government's plans to phase in its "Big Bang" of financial system deregulation after a two-month lull.
In its interim report to be completed by December, the group is expected to make proposals concerning a possible reduction of the securities transaction tax and changes in capital gains taxation.
Suggestions are also to be made on issues such as whether current tax breaks on insurance premiums should be terminated and what form of taxation is needed to cover financial products that would be newly introduced with the Big Bang, such as asset-backed securities.
While financial institutions want the tax burden on depositors and investors to be reduced to keep them from losing customers to foreign competitors, the Finance Ministry remains wary of losing too much tax revenue through these reforms because it is also seeking to correct the nation's fiscal deficit over the next six years.
The Tax Commission itself is expected to draw up its annual tax system reform package by the end of December for implementation from fiscal 1998.