Japan's Rural Towns Are Luring Tax From Tokyo With Beef and Beer www.bloomberg.com
banzaitokyo
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8 years, 3 months ago
in
Lifestyle
Want a free case of craft beer? If you send 30,000 yen ($260) or more of your taxes to the town of Yamanouchi in Nagano prefecture, theyll send you 24 bottles of a locally brewed beer to say thanks.
Want beef? Redirect 50,000 yen of your local area taxes to Miyakonojo in Miyazaki, and youll get 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of high-grade beef in return.
There is this scheme of "redirecting tax to the home towns", that allows sending a given amount of tax money from Tokyo to rural areas. Rural Japan has been complaining that Tokyo owes them taxes, because many rural kids - whose education is subsidized with local tax - end up in working in Tokyo.
There is also the problem that big companies have factories in countryside, but head offices in Tokyo. This means the bulk of corporate taxes generally go to Tokyo.
Many rural areas try to promote their best products to get the redirected tax. However, I am not sure about the details and also the effectiveness of this approach.
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And now we have ward offices in Tokyo grumbling about this: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/01/13/national/rural-furusato-nozei-beer-beef-thank-yous-costing-urban-japan-much-needed-revenues/ They argue they can build nursery schools with the money, but haven't been really doing so anyway.
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