Tax revenue logged a 20th straight month of year-on-year decline in April, indicating that fiscal 2002 tax revenue will fall below the targeted 44.28 trillion yen, the Finance Ministry said Monday.
A ministry official told reporters that the task of reaching the fiscal year target "has become difficult." Although the fiscal year ended March 31, certain revenues are not collected until later.
Relevant tax revenue collected in April dropped 6.4 percent from a year earlier to 3.58 trillion yen, bringing fiscal 2002 tax revenue collected thus far to 37.12 trillion yen, down 10.8 percent from the same period a year before.