Japan Press Weekly

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2008 November 5 - 11 [ECONOMY]

JCP Shii calls for nationwide effort to block consumption tax increase

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on November 5 called for a nationwide struggle to block a consumption tax increase.

Shii pointed out that Prime Minister Aso Taro’s proposal for raising the consumption tax rate three years later is in line with a government panel on social services stressing in its final report the need to raise the tax rate to 8.3-16 percent in 2015.

“The prime minister is planning to raise the consumption tax in three years, after the next House of Representatives general election. His remark amounts to making a tax increase part of his election promise,” Shii said.

He also stated that the Democratic Party of Japan used a “policy discussion” meeting with the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) in June to state that it is necessary to raise the consumption tax in the future.

He stressed, “They should not be ambiguous about this issue. All political parties, including the DPJ, must clearly state their position on the tax increase plan before the next House of Representatives general election.”

Shii stressed that the JCP opposes a consumption tax increase and calls for food items to be tax-exempt. He also said that on the question of fiscal resources, the JCP is demanding that military expenditures and all the other wasteful use of tax money be corrected and that large corporations and the wealthy should be required to pay higher rates of taxes according to their income.