Gov't eyes making daily necessities eligible for 2% rebate scheme

That's why a tax on gasoline is better than some guy sitting in a toll booth.

Eventually, all highways in Japan will be ETC only, or so that’s the current plan, so those toll collectors will be made redundant. A tax on Gasoline won’t happen now that online shopping has become a huge part of life here. The government is smart enough to know that if they increase the tax any further they will hear it from the majority of the population. That’s partly how the DPJ got elected 10 years ago, they said they’d cut the gas tax.

M3M3M3 - only someone that thinks logically could come up with that and as you know, logic is non-existent in Japan. Also, the LDP is supported by big business and the wealthy so clearly they are pandering to their base although I haven’t heard them mention rebates for the elderly....YET!

Are they out of their friggin' minds?!

Now, the best taxes are those which require the least amount of money to collect. That's why a tax on gasoline is better than some guy sitting in a toll booth.

This sounds absolutely impossible to implement. What's to prevent a store from fracturing itself, and how are elderly customers, who can barely manage cash, expected to deal with it?

Sounds complicated.....

All I know, is that other than milk and soy milk, there are no drinks that fall under the "necessary daily items" list in my books.

Water comes out of a tap and is vrry drinkable here. If you want, go ahead and buy bottled, but that's a luxury and should be taxed fully

There is a far easier way to do this. Simply cut a cheque for ¥50,000 (or whatever amount) at the start of the year to anyone who reported a low income in the previous year. It will be a way of refunding consumption tax, and it will allow people to decide for themselves what is a 'necessity'.

There is no need for the wealthy to receive this rebate and no need to set up a huge administrative structure to manage the system and decide which products will be deemed necessities.

I used to live in a country that had a system where consumption tax was not levied on childrens clothes or books. Eventually multinational food companies began to lobby to include childrens food. What is children's food you ask? Well, if you bought 5 donuts you paid full consumption tax on the entire purchase, but if you bought a pack of 6 or more you paid no consumption tax at all. The bizarre logic being that someone buying 6 donuts is probably buying them for a family which will include kids. It's a nightmare when you have a complex system like this with corruptable government bureaucrats making these decisions.

So, what am I gonna do with those reward points?

Exchange them for unwanted, useless items from the credit card company?

Most credit cards (all the ones I have, at least) offer gift coupons as well as 'useless items' in exchange for points. Use them like cash.

Premium vouchers? Will these be as successful as Premium Friday? These politicians and their humorous ideas.

So it's not about helping keep the cost of daily necessities down, not about subsidising small and medium sized retailers - it's all about promoting cashless.

Which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but why can't they just be honest and up-front about what they're doing?

Typical mealy-mouthed politicians.

Just make the tax rate on food, children's clothing, medicine and education 0%. That's one problem solved.

Then tell certain chains that there is no need to make me sign a credit slip when I use a prepaid card to pay a ¥287 (or whatever) bill to save on fiddling with change. That will help make cashless easier.

What kind of stupid flip-flop policy !!