Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2011 October 12 - 18 [POLITICS]

Political parties store up state subsidies without using or returning them

Political parties, including the Democratic, the Liberal Democratic, and Komei parties, have amassed a big chunk of leftovers from state subsidies they have received every year without returning unused funds to the state coffer.

The state distributes to the political parties annually 3.2 billion yen in total according to the number of Diet seats and vote shares they obtain in national elections. In 2011, the DPJ, the LDP, the Komei, the Social Democratic Party, the Your Party, the People’s New Party, the New Party Nippon, the New Renaissance Party, and the Sunrise Party of Japan received the subsidies.

Since the start of the subsidy program in 1995, billions of yen have been stored up by the recipient parties every year. In 1999, the accumulated amount of the unused subsidies hit a record high of about 25 billion yen, 79.5% of the total of subsidies provided. The average ratio of the stored up amount accounted for 38% of the total amount paid between 1999 and 2010.

The Political Party Subsidy Act obliges a recipient party to return unused funds to the national treasury. The Act, however, has a loophole in which if a political party sets up a “party fund,” the unused subsidies can be transferred to the fund for the next fiscal year. The parties can then break into this fund when national elections are held.

These parties are amassing the money obtained from the state subsidies rather than returning it, while forcing tax hikes on the public in the name of reconstruction needs.

Demanding the abolition of the state subsidies to the political parties, the Japanese Communist Party refuses to receive it on the ground that distributing taxpayers’ money to political parties violates the people’s freedom of thought and belief as stipulated in the Constitution.