Tag - _consumption-tax

 
 

_CONSUMPTION TAX

Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 8, 2013
Politicians unwilling to revisit tax hike law: adviser
Lawmakers are reluctant to reopen legislation on the sales tax rise, raising the bar for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should he seek a shallower path of increases, according to one of his advisers.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 8, 2013
Abe vows to trim ¥17 trillion; details few
The Abe administration approves a medium-term fiscal reform plan, pledging to narrow the budget deficit by ¥17 trillion over the next two years but offering no specifics on how to improve public finances.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 2, 2013
Tax delay and Fed paring called threat to JGB bubble
Takeshi Fujimaki, a former adviser to billionaire investor George Soros who won a seat in the Upper House election last month, said a delay in increasing the sales tax and a reduction in the U.S. Federal Reserve's stimulus could cause the Japanese government bond "bubble" to burst.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 31, 2013
Deficit cut mulled as sales tax debate intensifies
The Abe administration is considering an ¥8 trillion target for budget-deficit cuts over the next two years as officials debate how to proceed with the planned consumption tax increases that threaten to take the wind out of the economic rebound.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 29, 2013
Nation can weather April tax hike: Kuroda
Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda showed little concern that the first phase of the sales tax hike could derail an economic rebound as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decides whether to proceed with it.
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2013
Options eyed for softening tax hike
The administration may line up several options before deciding whether to follow through on the first stage of consumption tax hikes next April, including changing the timing —and the size — of the increases.
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2013
¥5 trillion package seen needed to cushion consumption tax rise
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, now sitting on the biggest legislative majority in six years, faces the threat of political dissent within months as a planned hike in the sales tax threatens to arrest an economic rebound.
JAPAN
Jul 24, 2013
Aso stirs pot with tax plot
The consumption tax is driving a wedge between government officials. On one side sits Finance Minister Taro Aso, a vocal advocate for sticking to the plan to hike the levy next April, while on the other high-ranking officials pussyfoot, insisting it is the prime minister's decision to make — sometime in the future.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 22, 2013
Poll outcome may benefit economy
With the ballots tallied and the opposition crushed, observers predict the ruling bloc's landslide victory Sunday amid the third-lowest voter turnout ever for a House of Councilors poll will have a positive impact on the economy and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's stewardship of it.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jul 21, 2013
Hesitating on sales tax hike?
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is said to be considering delaying the increase in the consumption tax rate currently scheduled to take effect in April 2014.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2013
Confidence in monetary easing growing among G-20, Kuroda says
Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda says confidence in the central bank's radical monetary easing experiment is spreading among the Group of 20 finance chiefs.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 19, 2013
April-June GDP forecast faces upgrade to 3%
Economists are projecting that the economy grew at an annualized rate of around 3 percent in the three months to June, surpassing the government's growth target for raising the consumption tax next April.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 11, 2013
Don't rush into tax hike, Abe adviser Hamada says
In what appeared to be a veiled warning, one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's most influential economic advisers has said he "doesn't have to rush" into the first stage of the sales tax hike unless the economy and the labor market have recovered.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 9, 2013
Sales tax hike contingent on economy: Aso
The government will not go ahead with the planned sales tax hike from the current 5 percent to 8 percent next April unless the economy is on a growth path, Finance Minister Taro Aso suggested Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 20, 2013
April sales tax hike a given: Amari
Japan will answer the world's call and present a credible midterm fiscal plan by implementing the sales tax hike as planned next April, economic revitalization minister Akira Amari said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Jun 13, 2013
On track for a tax increase
The Abe administration seems hellbent on raising the consumption tax starting next year regardless of whether it threatens the nation's economic recovery.
BUSINESS
Mar 28, 2013
Abe to decide on sales tax hike in fall
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday his administration will decide around October whether to raise the consumption tax to 8 percent from the current 5 percent in April 2014.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 8, 2012
What nobody is saying about Noda's new consumption tax bill
Two weeks ago, the Lower House passed a law to increase the consumption tax to 10 percent by 2015, something Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has been pushing with blinkered, self-sacrificial dedication. Eventual final passage seems inevitable at this point, and so the only aspect deemed worthy of discussion by the major media is how it affects the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which has splintered over the bill. As discussed in this space in April, the media bought the consumption tax hike a long time ago and the Finance Ministry made sure the dailies and TV networks "understood" what was at stake, namely Japan's future, which is being threatened by huge government deficits. Even the BBC seems to support the increase based on the idea that the consumption tax is too low by world standards. Experts who claim that the deficit is manageable and/or that the consumption tax isn't the best way to tackle it have been ignored, and now that the central issue has been pushed aside by the DPJ defection there's nothing left to talk about.
BUSINESS
Jul 7, 2012
IMF director praises consumption tax hike
The push by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his administration to raise the consumption tax is a key step that "will make the Japanese economy more agile and efficient," Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said Friday in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 23, 2012
Consumption tax fiasco magnified by absence of financial fundamentals
To paraphrase Winston Churchill's all too famous words at the time of the Battle of Britain: "Never in the field of economic policy has so little been achieved by so many hours wasted by so many lawmakers." The outcome of the debate over Japan's consumption tax would surely extract a quote to surpass all Churchillian quotes in its acerbity were he here to witness it.

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