Voice of the Customer

TMCnet - The World's Largest Communications and Technology Community
New Coverage :  Asterisk  |  Call Center Outsourcing  |  Call Recording  |  SIP Trunking  |  Hosted Exchange  |  PBX
Webinars
Channels by Topic
Share
 
| More
RSS-XML alerts
Print this page
E-mail this page to a friend
Voice of the Customer Featured Article Archive

TMCNet: LEAD: Tax panel urges gov't to clarify timing of sales tax hike+

[November 28, 2008]

LEAD: Tax panel urges gov't to clarify timing of sales tax hike+

(Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO, Nov. 28_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING INFO, KOSAI'S COMMENTS)

The government's tax panel on Friday urged the administration of Prime Minister Taro Aso to state the precise timing of a hike in the consumption tax rate from the current 5 percent when it unveils a medium-term fundamental tax reform program by the yearend.

The Tax Commission, which advises Aso, said in its tax reform proposals for fiscal 2009 that it "strongly requests the government to clarify the timing of drastic tax reforms in the medium-term program," as these reforms are intended to secure necessary revenue sources to support the nation's rapidly graying population.

The council, however, did not propose its own ideas for when would be a good time to hike the tax, and by how much.

The proposals were finalized at Friday's plenary session of the panel, which mainly consists of scholars and economists. Yutaka Kosai, head of the commission, then handed a report of recommendations to Aso.

Aso has indicated his willingness to boost the sales tax rate after Japanese economic conditions improve, pledging to gradually implement a comprehensive tax reform program involving the consumption tax hike through the mid-2010s.

The premier has said he believes it will take around three years before the Japanese economy recovers and he instructed the government and the ruling parties to work out the medium-term program by the end of December.

After presenting the report, Kosai expressed his regret at a news conference that the council could not fully explore medium- to long-term tax reforms in Japan this year, as the country's economy was caught up in the global financial crisis.

He also indicated that the tax panel's role was restricted by political uncertainties in Japan, which are caused by the divided Diet, because any bold proposal by the council could influence the upcoming general election.

"The government decides when and how much to raise the (sales) tax. It will be a political decision," Kosai said. "It is not our mission to impose our opinions on the government. We should rather sort out various views and create an environment to facilitate such a decision-making process."

In the report, the panel acknowledged the "unprecedented confusion in global financial markets" since the autumn and that the Japanese economy has entered into a recessionary phase.

Under such circumstances, the paper said it "cannot be helped" that the government prioritizes economy-boosting measures over efforts to improve fiscal health for now.

The stimulus steps announced by the government include expansion of tax breaks for homeowners paying housing loans and temporary corporate tax cuts for small firms.

The panel warned, however, that those preferential tax treatments "should be put in place in a way that does not disturb" future fiscal reconstruction efforts and the purpose of the envisioned radical tax reforms over the medium term.

The report said tax breaks stipulated in the stimulus package should be "temporary and effective" and "help boost our country's economic growth potential."

In carrying out fundamental tax reforms, the panel called for introducing a taxpayer identification number system so as to correctly calculate individuals' income levels and the amount of tax payment.

On specific tax items, the panel suggested that the government should keep the current surcharges in its gasoline and other road-related taxes, because they "play an important role" in curbing carbon dioxide that exacerbates global warming.

The council also recommended a tax exemption for dividends that Japanese companies receive from their overseas units.

Such a scheme is expected to encourage Japanese firms to plow back earnings made abroad into domestic capital investment, research and development activities and recruitment of personnel, it said.

Kosai pointed out at the press conference that Japan nowadays tends to gain more profits from its overseas investments than from exports, and that the tax system should not restrict the flow of money.

Under the current system, dividend receipts from subsidiaries abroad and the domestic income of their parent firms in Japan are tallied and taxed. Taxes that overseas units have paid abroad are then subtracted from the Japanese parents' tax liabilities.

Japan's effective corporate tax rate, now at around 40 percent, is at the highest level among major industrialized countries.

Due to the heavy tax burden and complex tax procedures, Japanese companies often fail to collect profits earned by foreign subsidiaries, leaving the money to lie idle abroad.

Copyright ? 2008 Kyodo News International, Inc.

[ Back To Voice of the Customer Community's Homepage ]
› Return to Voice of the Customer Home

FOLLOW US

FREE Voice of the Customer eNewsletter

Subscribe Now

Featured White Papers

  • Seven Best Practices for Speech Analytics: Speech analytics is valuable for identifying issues in the contact center. However, limiting its use to the contact center only considers a portion of all customer interactions and subsequently only reveals a small part of the voice of the customer. This paper discusses how organizations can optimize their Speech Analytics implementation strategy to realize the promise of this exciting technology.
  • Understanding the Voice of the Customer: Today's contact centers involve a sea of information that must be captured, processed, and distributed on a daily basis. Effective use of this information enables companies to remain competitive in an increasingly aggressive and customer centric marketplace. An overwhelming percentage of the information that circulates in a contact center's audio recordings, documents, web pages, and emails is unstructured in that it resides outside of a normal structured database and cannot be managed efficiently. These unstructured items contain valuable information, yet this information historically has been difficult to organize, categorize, and access.
View All ›

Case Studies

  • Aflac: Aflac, the leading provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance turned to Autonomy to help them automate the process of monitoring their contact center agent for quality and compliance. The company now has a system that can offer continued improvement in agent quality and productivity while enhancing the customer experience. ...
  • Avaya: Avaya, a global leader in business communications, inherited 880 websites as well as numerous intranets and extranets when it was spun off from Lucent Technologies. The sheer volume and diversity of the sites and the over 500 content creators resulted in inefficient content distribution rife with divergent branding, messaging, and product information. ...
View All ›

Video Showcase

    Interview with Autonomy: Rich Tehrani interviews Simon Hayhurst, SVP of Autonomy

Featured Events

  • Multichannel Analytics with Autonomy Explore: In today's world of constant connectivity there are a variety of direct and indirect channels of communication between an enterprise (or a brand) and its customers. 80% of these valuable interactions are generated in a human-friendly, unstructured format across multiple touchpoints and channels. With this ever growing mountain of information how do you extract the emerging trends and topics of interest to the enterprise? ...
  • SES Chicago 2011: Marketers and SEO professionals attend SES Chicago each year to network and learn about topics such as PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more. The conference offers 70+ sessions, intensive training workshops, and an expo floor packed with companies that can help you grow your business. While you're at it, network with peers and leading industry vendors. Programmed by the SES advisory board, you can be assured - SES content really is king! ...
View All ›
 
Share
 
| More
RSS-XML alerts
Print this page
E-mail this page to a friend