Japan's Lower House Passes Consumption Tax Cut Bill: Food Rate to Fall From 8% to 1%, as Ishiba and Three Other LDP Lawmakers Walk Out Before the Vote
Tokyo — Japan's House of Representatives passed the Takaichi government's consumption tax cut bill at a plenary session on the afternoon of November 6 local time, sending it to the House of Councillors.
The bill lowers the consumption tax rate on food and beverages from the current 8 percent to 1 percent for two years starting in April 2027, with the remaining relief for low- and middle-income households to be bridged by income-linked "support payments." The ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party carried the vote, while opposition parties including the Democratic Party for the People, Komeito and Sanseito voted against.
Before the vote, four LDP lawmakers left the chamber and did not take part: former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, former economy minister Yuko Obuchi, former justice minister Yoshihisa Furukawa and former economic planning chief Hajime Funada. According to The Mainichi Shimbun, Ishiba told people around him that he could not support "that kind of thing"; Funada cited the bill's unspecified funding, and Obuchi had earlier resigned a senior post on the LDP's tax panel over her disagreement with the tax-cut policy. LDP policy chief Takayuki Kobayashi called the walkout "deeply regrettable."
The bill moves next week to the upper house, where the ruling coalition lacks a majority. The government hopes to enact it before the extraordinary Diet session closes on December 12, but it has yet to spell out how the tax cut will be funded or who will receive the support payments — the questions on which the upper-house deliberations, and the bill's fate, will turn.
Related: Japanese PM Takaichi: Food Consumption Tax Cut From Next April for Two Years
(Source: The Mainichi Shimbun)
Source: The Mainichi Shimbun
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：日本首相高市早苗官方肖像。她力推的食品消费税减税法案11月6日获众议院通过。CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Official portrait of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
