Ishiba Seeks Debate on Resources for Hike in Taxable Income

Tokyo, Jan. 19 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Sunday stressed the importance of finding alternative financial resources for a proposed hike in the minimum annual taxable income from the current 1.03 million yen.

"We cannot find an answer unless we discuss how to finance the hike in the threshold," Ishiba, also president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said in a television debate program, which was also attended by heads of other political parties.

The LDP-led ruling bloc is talking with the opposition Democratic Party for the People on raising the threshold, in a bid to obtain the DPFP's cooperation in enacting the government's draft budget for fiscal 2025, which starts in April.

The LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, lost their combined House of Representatives majority in the October 2024 general election for the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament.

In the TV program, which took place ahead of the start of this year's ordinary Diet session Friday, Ishiba touched on the case in which a political organization of an LDP group in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly failed to record revenue from sales of fundraising party tickets in its political fund reports.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]