Onodera to Head LDP’s Tax Panel

Tokyo, Oct. 9 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has decided to appoint Itsunori Onodera, former chief of the party’s Policy Research Council, as chairman of its Research Commission on the Tax System, party sources said Thursday. Onodera is expected to hold discussions with the opposition Democratic Party for the People on proposals to scrap the provisional gasoline tax surcharges and raise the minimum taxable income level, according to the sources. LDP leader Sanae Takaichi, who was elected to the top party post Saturday, is apparently looking to the DPFP for a possible expansion of the country’s ruling coalition, currently made up of the LDP and Komeito. Onodera will succeed Yoichi Miyazawa, who has served as chairman of the tax panel for eight years since 2015, when the late Shinzo Abe was in office as prime minister. Under the current administration of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Miyazawa has remained cautious about raising the minimum taxable income threshold, angering the DPFP, which advocates for the hike. Serving as Policy Research Council chairman only until recently, Onodera continued talks with policy heads of opposition parties tenaciously at a time when the LDP-Komeito coalition is short of majority in both chambers of the Diet, the country’s parliament. Takaichi, who aims for an early LDP-Komeito agreement to maintain the coalition, is apparently counting on Onodera’s bargaining power, according to the sources. In a television program of Japan Broadcasting Corp., or NHK, the nation’s public broadcaster, on Thursday, Takaichi mentioned an LDP-Komeito-DPFP agreement on the abolition of the gasoline tax surcharges and the hike in the income threshold. She said: “The agreement among the parties is of great significance. I want (Onodera) to play an active role on the basis of firmly sticking to the agreement.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]