The stance of the opposition parties is to lower the consumption tax rate for the time being. This will become a major issue of the next Lower House election

I already foresee it being argued by the LDP that lowering the tax rate will create a painful financial burden on small businesses like mom and pop shops due to the complex algorithms that are apparently involved with any such adjustment, despite any concept that sales may actually increase due to a lower tax rate. Therefore, nothing will change.

Once a tax is imposed its unusual for it to lower let alone be done away with. Too many politicians need that revenue to pay for meetings to discuss how they can get more tax dollars, wasn't the last increase needed to pay retired people, did the get any rise in their pensions?

Once a tax is imposed its unusual for it to lower....

the corporate tax was lowered recently. Income taxes were also cut from around a decade ago, although the cuts have since expired.

Japan has everything to gain and nothing to lose by lowering the consumption tax at this point.

And this is all the opposition has to offer. Hello another 4 years of LDP control.

Corporate tax is different from a normal persons tax, they donate to politicians for gain, rest of us donate what we are told to.

just a minute Suga can do 100 sit ups everyday, that alone is worth a vote, stomp on a Tube of toothpaste, you have Abe all over the floor. Really the bar for inbred politicians has sunk so low, next who is better at Karaoke.

Japan slowly bankrupting itself.

Lol. Japan votes based on family name rather than policy, policy statements are really useless. To get seats, just need to recruit people from the political families to run under your banner.

The stance of the opposition parties is to lower the consumption tax rate for the time being. This will become a major issue of the next Lower House election

Amazing that this is even an issue since the end of the WWII (pacific war) that the japanese paid no sales tax (consumption tax) until about 2 decades ago at which started at 3 percent, then to 5 percent and now at 8 and 10 percent depending on which item you purchase. And it will continue to climb despite what any politician from any political ideogy says.

They literally wasted decades.

Had they implemented a slow and deliberate incremental tax hike every so often we wouldn't be at the rate that we are at now.