Ministry Analyzing Potential Economic Effects of Environment Tax

The Japanese Ministry of the Environment has set up an expert committee to analyze the various effects the introduction of an environment tax would have on the economy and other related problems. The first meeting was held on May 10, the second on May 27, the third on June 14, and the fourth on June 28, 2005.

Committee members discussed the following subjects: at the first meeting, management of the committee meetings and immediate concerns regarding the environment tax; at the second, the importance of the tax, the effect announcement of such a tax would have, its influence on citizens and businesses; at the third, economic impact and import tax adjustments; and at the fourth, impacts on technologies and industrial structure, import tax adjustments, measures relating to global warming, carbon leakage, and the backgrounds of environment tax introductions in other countries.

At the first meeting, the ministry insisted that the environment tax, if introduced, would not dampen consumption on the grounds that demand for oil remained unaffected even amidst the record oil prices of recent weeks. Conceding that the effect of announcing such a tax would be very difficult to quantify, ministry officials cited the surprisingly big greening impacts of the automobile tax and pointed out that not only fuel-efficient cars but also low-emission cars were in actuality sold beyond expectations, emphasizing that this was due simply to the effect of announcing the tax.

In subsequent meetings after the fifth meeting on July 22, the committee began preparing an interim report on the subjects discussed at first five meetings. This report will be used as reference in discussions for determining policies for FY2006.

http://www.env.go.jp/en/

Posted: 2005/11/09 04:24:48 PM
Japanese version