According to an Asahi Shimbun estimate, total donations under the furusato nozei (hometown tax) program hit a record ¥1.3314 trillion in fiscal 2025, while 19 prefectures — including Tokyo — saw more tax revenue flow out than they took in, putting them in the red. Tokyo alone posted a deficit of ¥225.5 billion.
On the thread, voices arguing “it’s just self-inflicted — they lost the gift-competition” clashed with critics saying “the residence-tax system itself is fundamentally warped,” and the discussion spread to cover the circumstances of other deficit-running prefectures like Saitama and Kanagawa.
Asahi Shimbun independently calculated, by prefecture, the balance for fiscal 2025 furusato nozei — donations received, minus the cost of return gifts and the revenue lost to residence-tax deductions — and found that in 19 prefectures the outflow exceeded the inflow, putting them in the red. Tokyo’s deficit alone comes to ¥225.5 billion. The drain on tax revenue has swelled especially in urban areas, once again exposing the distortions built into the system.
Favoring the wealthy? A wave of highly cash-convertible “pure gold” furusato nozei return gifts keeps popping up
According to data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications at the end of last month, total furusato nozei donations for fiscal 2025 reached a record approximately ¥1.3314 trillion. Based on the published figures, Asahi Shimbun combined fiscal 2025 donation totals with the cost of return gifts and shipping, along with the amounts to be deducted from residence tax under fiscal 2026 taxation, to estimate each municipality’s balance.
Source: asahi.com / Original article here
They're running these angry ads on the Nanbu train line — basically guilt-tripping riders with 'because of furusato nozei outflows, we've lost funding for children's facilities.'
If that's really the issue, just prioritize children's facilities in the current budget. Anyway, I don't want to pay Kawasaki a cent, so I'm maxing out my donations elsewhere.
Exactly this.
Places like Tokyo simply weren't competitive enough.
The deficit prefectures are only losing out because their return gifts aren't appealing, right?
They should realize just how much they've been coasting.
No coastline, no real local specialties or famous products, and it's awkwardly semi-urban.
It's twisted — you get municipal services without your residence tax actually going to your home municipality.
Reminder: even after doing furusato nozei, people still pay far more residence tax to their home municipality than you do.
And so furusato nozei just keeps growing even more — quite the self-sustaining cycle.
shrinks Japan's total tax revenue as a whole.
The only ones making a killing are the middleman brokers.
They've even got enough spare cash to blast out a ton of TV commercials.
If there's a shortfall, the only option left is raising residence taxes.
If you don't file for furusato nozei, your taxes just go to your home municipality as normal, don't they?
That's still tax money though, isn't it?
the logistics labor shortage would ease, fewer trucks would mean fewer accidents and less traffic, and even the gasoline shortage would improve.
Guess we'd have to ban online shopping too and force everyone to buy locally, huh.
Published December 26, 2023
https://togetter.com/li/2282534
They're raking in so much cash in places with barely any people that you have to wonder what they're even going to do with it.
It's nuts.
The money's just flowing to places that actually have the production capacity for goods in demand.
Piling money into places that only consume goods and services wouldn't generate any reproduction of value anyway.
Yamanashi and Yamagata seem to grow tons of fruit somehow. And mikan (mandarin oranges) make me think of Wakayama and Ehime.
Big cities have so much slack they can prop up a whole army of amakudari orgs (cushy sinecures for retired bureaucrats) — they'll be fine, lol.
That's basically the top of the tax-revenue ranking though.
Sounds like a huge success.
Even if every single resident maxed out their furusato nozei donations, it would only cut residence tax revenue by around 20% at most.
Potatoes come from Hokkaido.
Rice is domestic rice.
Don't you dare eat any, got it?
I'll just live on Calorie Mate (a Japanese meal-replacement snack bar).
If I need potatoes and rice, I can just target those two specifically.
Kind of like how, in the gold rush, the only ones who really profited were the tool sellers and Levi's.
Wait, so you're saying don't use Amazon, Rakuten, or Yodobashi either?
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “[Furusato Nozei] ‘Losses’ in 19 Prefectures: Tokyo’s Deficit Hits ¥225.5 Billion in FY2025.”
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