Tax revenues in January fell 11.1 percent from a year earlier to 2.89 trillion yen as smaller winter bonus payments for civil servants and company workers pushed down income tax revenues.
The Finance Ministry said Monday that tax collection is proceeding at the projected pace, however. Cumulative tax revenues since the April 1 start of fiscal 2003 stood at 26.9 trillion yen, down 2.7 percent from a year earlier.
"We believe that tax revenue collection is proceeding at a good pace," a ministry official said. "The progress suggests that we are on our way to reaching roughly our projected amount for the entire year."
The total for the April-January period was 64.4 percent of the 41.79 trillion yen in revenues projected for the full fiscal year, up from an average of 63.5 percent of projected amounts in the past five years, the ministry official said.