The Liberal Democratic Party's tax panel reached a rough agreement Monday to reduce the basic corporate tax rate by 3 percentage points in fiscal 1998, leading to a net reduction of roughly 330 billion yen in corporate taxes, senior panel officials said.
The rate currently stands at 37.5 percent, and with the addition of corporate taxes levied at the local level, the actual corporate tax rate comes to around 49.98 percent -- a level business circles maintain is much higher than that in other industrialized nations.
In all, taxes levied on the national level are expected to be reduced by at least 750 billion yen through various revisions in fiscal 1998 in an effort to stimulate the economy, the lawmakers said. The measures are not expected to include any comprehensive income tax rate cuts, but will include a nearly halving of the securities transaction tax rate.