The second round of special pump-priming income tax cuts for the current year may be implemented as early as August if related bills are enacted by the Diet by late May, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's tax panel said April 14.
The LDP's Research Commission on the Tax System met to discuss details of the tax cuts Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto outlined last week, which would return another 2 trillion yen to taxpayers this year.
These new reductions would augment 2 trillion yen in special income and resident tax cuts already in the process of being implemented and would similarly take the form of returning a set amount, rather than a set percentage, of taxes to taxpayers. "Although it would be easiest to implement the tax cuts when annual tax adjustments are made at the year's end, we are currently leaning toward making the tax returns on a monthly basis to fulfill the prime minister's desire to see the money take effect as swiftly as possible," one panel official said.