Opinion polls conducted by four major news outlets over the weekend showed approval ratings for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s administration remaining broadly unchanged from a month earlier.<\/p>\n
But they indicated widespread concern over the government\u2019s planned consumption tax cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cabinet approval ratings ranged from 41% in a Mainichi Shimbun survey \u2014 unchanged month on month \u2014 to 56% in a Yomiuri Shimbun poll, down 1 percentage point. ANN was the only outlet to record an increase, with the percentage of survey takers with a positive view of Takaichi\u2019s administration rising 6.2 points to 55.4%.<\/p>\n
One focus of the weekend polls was the government\u2019s plan to reduce the consumption tax on food from 8% currently to 1% for two years beginning in April 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Support for the policy stood at 54% in Yomiuri\u2019s survey and 52.7% in a Kyodo News poll. ANN found 47% in favor and 42% opposed. Mainichi\u2019s survey stood in contrast with the rest \u2014 47% of respondents said they viewed the policy negatively, versus 33% who saw it positively.<\/p>\n
While three of the four polls showed more respondents supporting the tax cut than opposing it, anxiety over its consequences on government coffers is high.<\/p>\n
In Kyodo\u2019s survey, 71.7% expressed concern about the tax cut\u2019s impact on government finances, while a similar proportion expressed the same concerns in ANN\u2019s poll.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yomiuri\u2019s poll found that the majority of respondents were worried the tax reduction could make it difficult for the government to sustain its social security system. A significant number of respondents expressed doubt over the government\u2019s ability to restore the tax to its original rate after two years.<\/p>\n
Under a Cabinet-endorsed proposal, the consumption tax on food \u2014 excluding alcohol and restaurant meals \u2014 would be reduced from 8% to 1% for two years starting next April. Low- and middle-income workers would receive payments to offset the remaining 1%, effectively reducing the tax to zero for them.<\/p>\n
Nomura Research Institute estimates that tax reduction alone would cost about \u00a54.4 trillion ($27.7 billion) annually.<\/p>\n
The government says it will avoid issuing deficit-covering bonds and instead review subsidies and special tax breaks while drawing on nontax revenues. It has yet to identify concrete sources sufficient to cover the cost of the measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ruling parties plan to finalize a tax reform outline for the measure in September before the government submits relevant legislation during the autumn session of parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will carefully explain the purpose of the consumption tax cut and how we plan to fund it to gain public understanding while securing market confidence,\u201d Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said on Monday at a regular news conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opinion polls conducted by four major news outlets over the weekend showed approval ratings for Prime Minister Sanae…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[295,5034,177,179,180,178,358,2787,1549],"class_list":["post-79424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-cabinet","tag-consumption-tax","tag-japans-politics","tag-japanese-politics","tag-politics","tag-politics-of-japan","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-surveys","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}