The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) on Wednesday requested 4 trillion yen in income and residential tax cuts from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its two small non-Cabinet allies.Rengo also called for measures to fight unemployment and for labor laws to be revised to help stabilize the job market. The request was submitted during a meeting with the secretaries general of the LDP, the Social Democratic Party and New Party Sakigake.LDP Secretary General Koichi Kato said the LDP will take any necessary measure except "major tax cuts," according to the participants in the meeting. Kato also said steps to stabilize the financial system aim not only to protect depositors but also to prevent small and medium-size businesses from going bankrupt.In the financial stabilization bills it will submit to the Diet, the government will make available 25 trillion yen to ease the credit crunch that is hitting small businesses particularly hard. Kato stressed that the measures have taken into account the issue of employment.Rengo called for 3 trillion yen of the total to be put into effect as permanent tax cuts and the remaining 1 trillion yen in a one-time cut. Kato declined comment on whether the LDP would make permanent tax cuts, but SDP Secretary General Shigeru Ito said tax cuts need to be systematized, implying they should not be limited to one year alone, Ito told reporters.
