The nation's income tax revenue, which stood at about 27 trillion yen in 1991, is expected to dwindle to slightly more than 14 trillion, yen according to a fiscal 2005 budget estimate. The drop is due to a series of tax-reduction schemes put into place over the past decade to revive the sagging economy.
A report issued last week by the Tax Commission has made it clear that the government aims to halt the revenue decline by raising salaried workers' income taxes.
The listed "points of interest" or proposals for achieving this goal consist mainly of either reducing or abolishing various measures that the government introduced in the past to reduce the tax burden on salaried workers.