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The story
Shimane Prefecture Governor Tatsuya Maruyama reportedly told a press conference that corporate tax on large companies should be permanently raised. The remark is seen as reflecting the harsh state of local government finances, but on 5ch the first reaction was the simple question of whether Shimane even has any major corporate bases to begin with — and from there, the discussion expanded into a broader tax-policy debate over whether corporate tax or consumption tax should be raised or lowered. Some argued corporate tax should go up, others pointed out that Japan’s consumption tax burden is low by international standards compared to its corporate tax, and still others worried that high-earning companies would flee overseas — the thread never settled into a simple for-or-against split.
“Permanent Corporate Tax Hike Should Put the Burden on Big Business” — Shimane Governor at Press Conference | Mainichi Shimbun
September 12, 2026, 10:40 AM
Shimane Governor Tatsuya Maruyama says at a press conference that “corporate tax should be permanently raised” — at the prefectural government office, September 11, 2026, 2:11 PM. Photo by Osamu Kobayashi.
Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here
What people said
Even the branch offices there probably don't bring in much revenue.
San-in Godo Bank… (a regional bank headquartered in Shimane)
If a big company that could actually be named were based in Shimane, the governor would've already been forced out.
There isn't one — that's exactly why he's saying the regions need money handed to them.
Let them run on their own tax revenue for once.
Or else, just get absorbed into Tottori Prefecture.
So in return, they wouldn't have to pay national taxes either, right?
It's rough.
It literally says 'big corporations' right there…
Consumption tax: 33rd out of 38 OECD countries
Japan has high corporate tax and very low consumption tax, so if anything's getting cut it should be corporate tax, and if anything's getting raised it should be consumption tax.
Funny thing is, big exporters don't actually end up paying that consumption tax.
Individuals are already past their breaking point,
but it's not like corporations get off easy either.
I guess the logic is corporations still have more breathing room so raise theirs,
but honestly the government wastes money on unnecessary things to begin with
— handing out welfare benefits to foreign nationals and then talking about raising taxes?
Everyone says the Maibara route would be plenty, yet they're burning
5 trillion yen in tax money on the Hokuriku Shinkansen's Obama-Kyoto route instead.
There's no doubt the LDP massively wastes tax money.
obviously also want the corporate tax cuts reversed too, right? (lol)
Corporate tax and consumption tax aren't the only taxes that exist, you know.
From the standpoint of widening inequality, taxing the wealthy more is just the obvious call.
That's idiotic.
Do that and highly profitable, healthy companies will just flee Japan for other countries one after another.
All that'll be left in Japan is a pile of companies running in the red.
With the yen at historically weak levels, production costs overseas have skyrocketed — so where exactly would they flee to?
There's no such thing as a 'healthy company' in Keidanren (Japan's big-business federation).
It's full of parasite companies that just skim off the top as middlemen.
Better to drive these guys out and let honest companies thrive instead.
Corporate tax is a tax on profit.
When the corporate tax rate was cut, tax revenue actually went up.
That's because it became cheaper to just pay the tax than to force through extra spending purely to dodge it.
Consumption tax, from a company's perspective, is a tax on revenue.
Since consumption tax taxes revenue, there's no way to avoid it through tax planning.
If Japan wants to increase tax revenue, it should raise the consumption tax, not the corporate tax.
Consumption tax is the mechanism by which everyone — not just the working-age population —
shares the burden of social security spending, which already eats up more than half the national budget.
In other words, cutting consumption tax just means dumping that heavy social security burden entirely onto the working-age generation instead.
If you're going to cut consumption tax, you need to cut social security spending itself, otherwise the burden on working-age people won't actually get lighter.
And if you are going to cut it, it should be on housing and luxury goods — not on daily necessities.
Housing tax cuts? Already been done ages ago.
Quit spreading misinformation.
For Tokyo-headquartered companies, the corporate tax rate should be tripled, and losses should be taxed mercilessly too.
Denmark 25% (food: 25%)
Norway 25% (food: 15%)
Finland 24% (food: 14%)
Japan 10% (food: 8%)
Japan's consumption tax is low, so there's no need to cut or abolish it.
Of course it looks that way when you only cherry-pick the countries with high rates.
Show some countries with zero percent too.
Good to see.
Re: #57
Japan really needs that special financial audit system I've been proposing to the young and mid-career officials at the Ministry of Finance — if it ever got introduced, there's no telling how many bureaucrats would get arrested. This country is so riddled with middlemen skimming off the top that it's hopeless as is.
If raising interest rates is going to increase the mortgage burden on the working-age generation, then the consumption tax on housing should be cut to offset that.
And raise the consumption tax on food instead.
Housing tax cuts are already a thing.
Quit spreading misinformation.
Corporate tax is levied on profit, but consumption tax is effectively levied on profit plus labor costs.
That means raising employee salaries actually increases the tax burden under consumption tax — that's the brutal part of it.
With corporate tax, raising salaries doesn't increase what you owe — if anything, paying employees more actually lowers your corporate tax bill.
That's the most horrifying thing about consumption tax by comparison.
The whole point is that since companies aren't doing that on their own, corporate tax should be raised instead.
Honestly, I don't think high corporate tax is a problem.
Companies are using the local workforce in that region, after all.
Income tax originally started as a way to fund wartime expenses anyway — just abolish it and
roll everything back into corporate tax. It's the same money no matter what stage it's taxed at.
And abolish consumption tax too, while we're at it.
No, it wouldn't.
Japan's effective corporate tax rate was the 2nd highest in the world for years (now it's 7th),
and salaries never went up because of it.
More companies might start exploiting loopholes in the corporate structure to dodge tax — like a massive corporation conveniently using sole proprietors for convenience.
Re: #211
No, it wouldn't. If corporate tax gets raised, the trend will just shift toward executives holding their own company stock and boosting shareholder dividends instead.
— but foreign companies never came in anywhere near the numbers the government expected.
Companies invest in markets where growth is expected, right?
Japan is a country in decline due to a shrinking, aging population, so there aren't many companies lining up to invest here going forward.
Well, Japan's corporate tax is still
the 7th highest in the world.
Other countries offer things like several years of corporate tax exemption to attract factories.
Once jobs increase, they can just collect from the workers' income instead.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The tension between corporate tax and consumption tax is a recurring structure in Japan’s tax policy debates: corporate tax falls on profit while consumption tax falls on sales and consumption, and that difference in nature fuels disagreement over “who should bear the burden.” What makes this particular remark notable is that it came from a local government like Shimane Prefecture — a reflection of Japan’s local tax structure, where tax payments concentrate in the major metropolitan areas where most big corporate headquarters are based, leaving regional areas with little tax revenue of their own. The thread’s starting point — “does Shimane even have any big corporate bases?” — raised doubts about whether the governor’s argument actually connects to his own prefecture’s interests, before the conversation broadened into a general debate over whether corporate tax or consumption tax should be raised or lowered. Some posts cited specific figures, such as OECD tax-rate rankings, but these remain claims made on an anonymous message board, without cited sources — a point worth treating with caution.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “‘Permanent Corporate Tax Hike Should Put the Burden on Big Business’ — Shimane Governor at Press Conference.”
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