Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki on Sunday indicated his opposition to applying reduced rates to food and other daily necessities if the consumption tax is hiked from the current 5 percent.
"Reduced rates are not necessarily needed," said Tanigaki, who proposed doubling the consumption tax rate to 10 percent by the mid-2010s as one of his policy pledges when he announced his bid Thursday to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is stepping down in September.
Japan is different from Europe, where in some countries the consumption tax tops 20 percent and reduced rates are applied to some items, he told reporters.
There are calls for applying reduced rates to daily necessities for low-income families.