Japan Press Weekly

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2015 March 4 - 10 TOP3 [ECONOMY]

Toyota enjoys preferential tax measures

Toyota Motor Corporation enjoyed the largest amount of tax cuts for corporate R&D among all companies in Japan in fiscal 2013, Akahata reported on March 8.

The tax breaks for R&D spending is one of the special taxation measures targeting large corporations.

Akahata estimated the amount of R&D tax reductions for Toyota based on the 2013 financial report and found that it comes to about 120 billion yen. This figure corresponds to the largest amount of R&D tax cuts for any company in that fiscal year, which was stated in the government taxation report released earlier.

The second-ranked firm received an R&D tax break of 20.2 billion yen. The government report withholds companies’ names.

Toyota’s operating profit hit a record high of nearly 2.3 trillion yen in fiscal 2013. The carmaker paid no taxes between 2008 and 2012.

Japan’s preferential tax system, including tax reductions for R&D expenses, only serves a small number of major corporations. This is a result of political contributions from companies.

In 2013, Toyota donated to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party 64.4 million yen, up 13 million yen from a year earlier. The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), calling on its member corporations to make donations to the LDP, has been pushing for further R&D tax breaks. The Abe government intends to meet this outrageous demand.


Past related articles:
> JCP Majima: Toyota makes huge profits by exploiting subcontractors [March 3, 2015]
> Toyota Motor pays no corporation tax [June 1, 2014]