Japanese Communist Party House of Representatives member Kotaro Tatsumi directly challenged Prime Minister Takaichi, presenting calculations showing that a 1% reduction would only save 60,000 yen per year, while a 5% reduction would save 170,000 yen.
The government's supplementary budget bill for fiscal year 2026, submitted to address the impact of the Middle East situation, was passed by a majority vote in the House of Representatives plenary session on the 4th, with support from the Liberal Democratic Party, the Japan Innovation Party, the Democratic Party for the People, Team Mirai, and others. The Japanese Communist Party, the Centrist Reform Alliance, and the Sanseito Party opposed it. (Related on page 2)
At the House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting on the same day, Japanese Communist Party member Kotaro Tatsumi pointed out that the supplementary budget bill for fiscal year 2026 lacked concrete support for businesses and medical institutions struggling due to the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, and called for direct support for businesses and a uniform consumption tax reduction to 5%.
Mr. Tatsumi emphasized that the "National Social Security Conference," composed of the government and some opposition parties, is discussing lowering the consumption tax rate to 1% for two years only on "food products," but stated that this is "far too late and insufficient."
The panel pointed out that the tax reduction effect would be only about 60,000 yen per year on average for working households of two or more people if "food items" were reduced by 1%, and that the tax would increase again in two years. In contrast, a flat 5% reduction would provide approximately 170,000 yen, which is 2.8 times more support for households than the 1% reduction on "food items," and is about 110,000 yen more. They urged that "what the public wants is a flat 5% tax reduction."
