Yen for Living

Lookin’ rosy: Diagram of new Tokyo condo with flowers marking the units that have been sold

The term kakekomi kounyu means rushing to buy something at the last minute after hesitating for a long time. The implication is that there is some time limit involved. It’s being used a lot now in the media with reference to the consumption tax, which is scheduled to rise from 5 to 8 percent in April 2014, and then again to 10 percent in October 2015. It’s assumed that many consumers will try to buy big-ticket items before the increase goes into effect in order to save money, and that a good portion will wait until the last minute.

Some economists are advising people to not wait too long, especially if they’re thinking about buying a new home. Recent articles in both the Asahi Shimbun and the weekly magazine Shukan Post say pretty much the same thing on the subject: If you’re thinking about buying a home or a car, you should start planning right now. The Asahi uses the example of a ¥30 million condominium. You can figure that about a third of this is the price of the land, and since land sales are exempt from consumption tax it means you’ll pay tax on ¥20 million.

At present, the tax will come to ¥1 million, but after April 2014 it will go up to ¥1.6 million, and then 18 months later to ¥2 million. If you want to take advantage of this savings, experts say you should move now, because the tax is levied not when you sign the contract for the new home, but when occupancy of the property is “transferred over” (hikiwatashi) into your name, and in most cases the average time between the point when a particular unit goes on sale and the point when the buyer takes possession of it is one year.

So if you want to beat the consumption tax raise you have to start looking now. That’s why so many real estate flyers for new homes stress that “now is the chance.” They really do mean “now,” as in “today.” Moreover, realtors and developers are saying that since there will be a rush to beat the tax, demand will be high and so the longer you wait the less likely it will be that you can find what you want. Prices may even be higher the closer you get to April 2014.

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As long ago as the early 1980s the health ministry made it a priority to get more people to undergo cancer screenings in order to detect the disease at its earliest and easiest-to-treat stages. By 2009, the goal was to have 50 percent of the targeted adult population receive annual tests for five types of cancer — colon, stomach, breast, uterus, lung — by 2012. That goal was not reached, so they moved it back another five years, but since the overall screening rate at present is still somewhere between 20 and 30 percent, it doesn’t appear the ministry is going to achieve that goal either.

I’ll take one from column A, and…: Cancer screening menu distributed by local government (click to enlarge).

According to an article in Asahi Shimbun, the main obstacle is income. A center for adult diseases in Osaka analyzed surveys carried out by the health ministry and found that the higher a person’s income is, the more likely he or she is to undergo cancer screenings. In fact, screening rates have a direct correlation to the public health insurance program a person is enrolled in. For instance, 48 percent of males enrolled in the Kyosai Kumiai insurance program receive colon cancer screenings. The rate drops to 38 percent for a man in the Kumiai Kenpo program, 27 percent for one in the Kyokai Kenpo program, 19 percent for those who use regular kokumin hoken (national insurance), and only 13 percent for people on public assistance, who get their insurance free.

Kyosai Kumiai members are national and local civil servants, including public school teachers, whose average income in 2009 was ¥2.36 million. Kumiai Kenpo is insurance for companies with 100 or more companies, of which the average member makes ¥1.95 million. Kyokai Kenpo is for companies with less than 100 employees. Their average salary is ¥1.39 million. Regular kokumin hoken is for part-timers, pensioners and the self-employed, who average ¥910,000 a year. People on welfare, of course, don’t have income.

Cancer checks are managed by local governments, who set up screenings at public facilities or cooperating hospitals and clinics, usually for limited periods at specific times of the year. The Osaka center found that part-timers, the self-employed and workers at smaller companies usually cannot take time off whenever they want to, and thus are less likely to be able to go to the facility when the screenings are being conducted, usually on weekdays. Moreover, they may not have the money to pay the nominal fees for the screenings, which can cost anywhere from a few hundred yen to ¥2,000 or more. Even though welfare recipients get free insurance, they have to pay these fees as well. And there’s a fee for each screening, so if you are a woman and undergo all five of the tests recommended it could cost as much as ¥10,000. And there are lots of tests for other types of cancer, each of which requires a fee.

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You talkin’ to me?: Sign asking apartment residents to clean up after their dogs

Like a lot of Japanese cities, Izumisano, in Osaka Prefecture, has a problem with dog doo. People aren’t properly cleaning up after their pets, and last year the city government passed an ordinance that would levy an immediate ¥1,000 fine on people who didn’t. The ordinance has gone into effect but there’s one problem: No staff to patrol and issue the summonses. So far not one fine has been levied much less collected. Obviously, the city needs to hire people to carry out the patrols, but like almost every other municipality in the country, Izumisano is short of funds, so the mayor proposed a tax on dog owners to pay for the patrol. The idea was met with overwhelming support from the citizens.

No one bothered to break this support down into people who own dogs and those who don’t, but according to the magazine Aera, these days almost any tax proposal is met with automatic opposition, even from those it doesn’t target. But everybody in Izuminosano thinks this tax is a good idea, including animal welfare groups, which would conceivably shoulder an extra financial burden if the tax is carried out unless it specifically excluded organizations such as private shelters. One such group told Aera that it’s important to enlighten people to the responsibility attendant on dog ownership, especially with regard to a dog’s impact on the environment and public sanitation. The group thinks that a dog tax would be a good way to raise such awareness, in addition to collecting money that can be used for animal welfare.

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The damage: bill for national health insurance

Last week, the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare released the results of a survey of about 60,000 households regarding the government-run basic pension plan. The ministry found that about one-fourth of the people who are supposed to be paying into the plan had no income in 2009. In addition, 38 percent of participants made less than ¥500,000 for the year, and 54.7 percent made less than ¥1 million.

The basic pension, kokumin nenkin, is for people who don’t work for companies or organizations that contribute to their employees’ government-run pensions, meaning they are either self-employed, part-timers or unemployed (and not wives of salaried workers). In 2011 only 58.6 percent of people who were supposed to pay into the basic pension plan actually did. The obvious conclusion the ministry drew from these numbers is that the ranks of the poor are growing.

These findings are sobering, but one should keep in mind that while not paying one’s pension contributions certainly undermines the system it doesn’t affect the person in a direct way, since he or she does not benefit from those contribution until he or she is old. In any case, if a person can’t pay the monthly ¥14,980 basic pension contribution because he or she is unemployed, the person can apply for an exemption.

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Take my money, please

Japan’s biggest-ever lottery offering went on sale July 9. The 2012 Summer Jumbo Takarakuji  has 26 grand prizes of ¥400 million each — tax free. The last Jumbo lottery was in February, with a top prize of ¥300 million, but in March the authority that oversees the contest increased the maximum possible prize from ¥300 million to eventually reach ¥750 million. The strategy is to gradually increase the amounts of the jackpots in order to boost sales on a continuing basis.

The authority is called the Zenkoku Jichi Takarakuji Jimu Kyogikai, or Zenkokukyo for short. It means, literally, national self-government lottery administration council, and is made up of finance section heads of prefectural governments and large cities. The headquarters are located in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government offices, which makes sense. More lottery tickets are sold in Tokyo than anywhere else.

According to research carried out by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, ¥173 billion worth of lottery tickets were sold in Tokyo in 2007, meaning per capita sales were ¥14,278. The next largest sales amount was recorded by Osaka, with ¥98 billion. About 46 percent of nationwide revenue becomes prize money, with 40 percent going to prefectural and city governments, and the remainder is used for administrative and other costs. The amount that each local government receives is determined by how many tickets each has sold.

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Killing with kindness? Caregiver helps elderly woman into her apartment

Ever since the government launched the kaigo hoken system in 2000 to provide nursing care services for seniors, the health ministry reviews revenues and expenditures every year and adjusts them accordingly. What this means is that every year premiums go up, which makes sense since the number of seniors is increasing while the population in general remains static or shrinks. In 2000, 15.6 percent of the population was 65 or older. In 2011 the same demographic accounted for 21.4 percent of the population.

Starting at age 40, every resident of Japan pays kaigo hoken premiums, the amount determined by age and income. Even seniors who are eligible for and receive kaigo (nursing care) services pay premiums. They also bear 10 percent of the cost of their care. As each year passes, the burden gets heavier. In 2000, the average monthly premium for people 65 and older was ¥2,911. This past April, that amount breached ¥5,000, and it’s sure to go up. The baby boom generation will turn 75 in 2025, when it is estimated that the cost of kaigo hoken services, including the 10 percent that seniors bear, will total somewhere between ¥19 and ¥23 trillion. That’s twice the cost of such services in 2012. Consequently, average premiums for seniors will be more than ¥8,000.

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League of Extraordinarily Happy Gentlemen: entrance to Tokyo Bankers Association

On May 15 several major banks announced they would start paying corporate taxes. Mizuho Corporate Bank said it would start paying this year, while Mizuho Bank, Mitsui Sumitomo Bank and Resona Holdings will start next year. According to the Asahi Shimbun, it will be the first time in 15 years that Mitsui Sumitomo will pay any taxes. For Resona, a consolidation of Daiwa Bank, Kinki Osaka Bank, Nara Bank and, later, Asahi Bank, it’s the first time in 18 years.

The Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ financial group started paying corporate taxes last year. Despite the Lehman Brothers-triggered recession, all these banks have been in the black since at latest 2006. However, by law they can carry over cumulative losses from previous years on their books. All the banks suffered huge losses in the 1990s due to bad loans. At its worst point, Mizuho was in the hole by as much as ¥5 trillion; Mitsui Sumitomo ¥2.7 trillion. The three top banks’ total profits for fiscal 2012 is estimated to be ¥1.9 trillion, a 35 percent increase over 2011, even though they don’t lend money any more. All these banks received government bailouts and Resona was actually nationalized for a while. Of the total ¥3.1 trillion that was injected into the banking system by the government, ¥2.3 trillion has been paid back, and it’s assumed that the rest will be reimbursed earlier than originally planned.

Until the cut that went into effect April 1, Japanese companies always complained that corporate tax rates were higher here than in other countries, but 70 percent of them never pay any, including listed companies that pay dividends. More than 80 percent of companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange paid dividends last year. Moreover, before the Diet approved the 5 percent corporate tax reduction (from 40 to 35 percent for the biggest companies), the Japan Communist Party, which opposed any cuts to the corporate tax, revealed that “internal reserves” (naibu ryuho) of Japanese companies amounted to ¥266 trillion. At any rate, the special taxes enacted to pay for reconstruction have reduced the cut slightly, but companies still have a smaller rate than they did last year.

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