The average price of land along select major thoroughfares was down this year for the 12th straight year, the National Tax Agency said Monday.
As of Jan. 1, the average price of such land had fallen 5 percent from a year earlier to 115,000 yen per square meter. But the margin of decline, based on appraisals by the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry at about 410,000 locations across Japan, narrowed from the previous year's 6.2 percent, the agency said.
Tax authorities will use the so-called roadside land price to assess inheritance, gift and land taxes for 2004.