budget

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Finance Ministry draft of FY 2006 budget involves 3.3 trillion yen tax increase

The Finance Ministry on December 20 submitted to the Koizumi Cabinet a 80 trillion yen national budget draft for FY 2006 that will impose an extra burden on household economies, while virtually continuing tax breaks for large corporations allowing them to yield the highest ever profits.

In a published statement on the same day, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi criticized the draft budget and made the following points:

The government touts itself for keeping the government bond issuance below 30 trillion yen this time, but this is nothing less than the result of their shifting of burdens onto household economies and local governments. On the other hand, it preserves wasteful expenditures such as the bloated military budget.

Breaking their election pledge of not increasing taxes on salaried workers, the ruling parties are going to impose a tax increase of 3.3 trillion yen by removing exemptions. The increased burden will further damage people's living standards and the viability of small businesses.

Corporate tax breaks for large corporations whose surplus funds have now reached 83 trillion yen will be perpetuated, and privileged tax cuts on their research and development expenditures and other favorable treatments for them will be maintained.

The government plans to make patients and elderly people pay more for their medical services so that the state and corporate share in medical insurance costs can be reduced. The draft budget allocates smaller portions than this year to small- and medium-sized businesses, and agriculture, and education. In contrast, wasteful public works projects remain intact.

The JCP demands that the consequences of misguided fiscal management not be shifted onto people's living conditions and that fiscal reconstruction be sought by making large corporations pay their fair share.

(The Koizumi Cabinet on December 24 approved the draft of the government budget for fiscal 2006 to be submitted to the Diet.)
- Akahata, December 21, 2005