Japan Press Weekly

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2012 March 14 - 20 TOP3 [ECONOMY]

140,000 hold nationwide action opposing tax increase

On March 13, two days before the March 15 tax return deadline, a total of about 140,000 farmers, small business owners, and pensioners held rallies and demonstrations at 540 locations throughout Japan in protest against Prime Minister Noda’s plan to submit a bill to increase the consumption tax rate to the Diet by the end of the month.

Participants in each location marched in demonstration to their respective local tax offices to apply for the final income tax return.

At a rally held in Morioka City in disaster-stricken Iwate Prefecture, the chair of the prefectural branch of the National Federation of Merchant and Industrialist Organization (Zenshoren) said, “A consumption tax hike to 10% from the current 5% will impose heavier burdens on the disaster-affected region. It will hurt the country’s economy and further slow down the recovery from the 3.11 disaster.”

In Tokyo’s Ota ward, where small- and medium-sized manufacturers are concentrated, 250 people including many workers took part in a rally.

A 78-year-old man running a polishing processing shop said, “We receive very few orders from large corporations because they use overseas manufacturers. Japan’s economy is deteriorating under the Noda administration. It is necessary to change the direction of politics to one benefiting local small business operators.”

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Kasai Akira in his speech spoke about the JCP proposal to improve social welfare services without increasing the consumption tax rate. He said, “Let’s work together to defend livelihoods and smaller businesses by forcing a halt to the consumption tax hike plan.”