Japan eyes tax breaks for home, car buyers to ease sales tax hike impact

Yup, because we can't hurt the auto or construction industries, which the government of course has their thumbs in. Instead, no tax breaks for things people need, like food. No doubt the big car makers, still reeling from scandals to the last company, are thrilled they won't be affected much (and can still increase costs with the tax hikes).

Meanwhile, they'll make up for it by slashing social welfare across the board.

Why not remove consumption tax from food, if you really want to help ordinary residents as opposed to helping your chums in the car and construction business.

The poorest people, who are hit hardest by an increase in sales tax, don't buy cars and homes. As smithinjapan says, this is for big business.

As an aside, when buying a house a few years ago, I was advised to avoid houses built around 2012-3, many of which were rush jobs constructed to avoid the rise in sales tax.

how about not taxing rice, milk and butter? THAT would help

tax breaks already in place that save home buyers up to 5 million yen depending on their remaining mortgage

So who has a mortgage balance of 50,000,000 yen to be able to qualify for this?

The rich do, the banks don’t give poorer people such big loans.

How about raise the consumption tax rate less, and cancel this special treatment for the rich and the LDP’s cronies in the construction industry to compensate?

Abe doesn’t need to hike taxes if he is just going to blow the revenues away on more spending.

Bwahahahaha! What a load of bull poop! It's just another protectionist ploy to support the auto and construction industries. People are buying far fewer new homes these days. They are just waiting for their parents and grandparents to die so they can inherit their houses. I have friends in the Real Estate business and they cannot sell new or near-new homes. Even rentals are becoming more difficult to fill. I moved recently and most of the apartments I looked at had been empty for two years or more (in the suburbs of Tokyo). And, as for the cars, I've been living in Japan for nearly two decades and there are far more ten to fifteen year old cars on the roads now than there were 10 years ago. What is wrong with these fools that they cannot realise that, in a stale economy people cannot afford to buy new cars and houses? Tax cuts mean very little if people don't have the money to purchase them in the first place.

"No tax on all food items. No tax on all school items. No tax on children clothes. No tax on female sanity items. No sales tax on domestic utilities. No tax on daycare services."

I think there's an oxymoron in there.

what is his highness going to do with those additional 2%.

Well actually it is money they already spent. They spend 97 trillion a year, and with this tax rate hike might get tax revenues to 65 trillion.

Still a 30 trillion yen deficit.

So don’t expect anything extra for it. Expect more tax hikes or spending cuts next, not better quality or quantity of public services

You weren't completely wrong first time, Zichi.

@smith. Are you my twin brother?

how about taxing companies with over 1000 employees, closing NPPs and limiting expense accounts for politicians?

food is getting so expensive recently. ¥400 for Chinese cabbage. Petrol is going up and up. Whine whine whine....

So the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, again?

What happened to that Komeito plan for lower consumption tax on food? Is that going to happen, or have the LDP shelved it? Either way, the Komeito stooges will keep on backing lying Abe.