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On July 1, the DPJ Fundamental Tax and Social Security Reform Research Committee, chaired by Acting President Yoshito Sengoku, and the DPJ Tax System Reform Project Team, chaired by Sakihito Ozawa, held a joint meeting. The meeting reported on the “proposal for integrated reform of social security and tax” (provisional translation) that had been agreed upon on June 30 by a headquarters set up as a forum for representatives of the government and ruling parties to study social security reform
Sengoku said, “I appreciate the fact that the headquarters has decided upon a proposal, following the sincere and enthusiastic discussions that have taken place during this time. We already share the perception that in a mature society such as Japan, where a whole variety of structural changes are progressing at high speed, it is not possible to build a firm economy or regional communities without a strong social security system. In order to achieve this we must build strong and robust financial foundations, sources of revenue for social security. It is clear that we must create an economy with strong growth in order to build such strong financial foundations. There is still some debate about this matter, but I believe we need to face this issue with the attitude that we can overcome such debate and achieve our goals, rather than engaging in negative debate and looking for reasons why we can’t succeed.”
Participants in the meeting were active in welcoming and praising the content of the proposal, which had been drawn up as a result of many internal meetings. Others called for the implementation of the appropriate fiscal and economic measures to achieve the “escape from deflation and economic revitalization” and “improvement in economic conditions” included in the proposal as conditions for implementation of comprehensive tax system reform. In response to the various opinions, the research committee and the project team confirmed their intention of continuing to make every effort as the ruling party in forthcoming negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, with the aim of coming to an agreement on a legislative proposal during the current fiscal year.
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