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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

JCP Ichida urges government to stop increasing tax burdens on elderly

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a press conference on July 3 published a request to the government calling for the immediate halt to levying heavier taxes on the elderly that include not only the measures recently implemented but also under consideration. The JCP submitted it to the government on July 4.

In 2005, the government increased the income tax rate on pensioners, which automatically led to a major increase in residential taxes this year. In June, when the municipal governments informed the residents of their amount of tax, many elderly people, shocked at the increase of more than ten times than the previous year's, rushed to phone municipal governments in protest and requested an explanation.

This is nothing but the result of the regressive tax policy the Liberal Democratic and Komei parties are pushing ahead with. The JCP has consistently opposed such misgovernment.

Ichida pointed out that income and residential tax increases are devastating five million people, or one out of five of the elderly population.

The JCP's request to the government warned that despite the decrease in pension due to price indexation, the elderly have been attacked by the residential tax hike as well as by the increases in the national health insurance tax and nursing-care insurance premiums that are linked to the residential tax. It will also inevitably invite raising public-run housing rents and payment for nursing-care and at hospitals.

What's worse, as the elderly are facing more tax increases, including the abolishment of temporary tax cuts, the total tax amount will well exceed the affordable level for the elderly, the JCP emphasized.

Akahata began receiving faxes from the public in protest against the heavy taxes. A 70-year-old citizen living in Kitakyushu City wrote in a fax: "This year, my residential tax jumped to 22,600 yen from zero yen last year, health insurance tax increased by 18,250 yen, and nursing-care insurance premium increased by 31,800 yen."
- Akahata, July 4, 5, 2006