Japanese Restaurants Seek Relief from Wider Tax Gap

Tokyo, Sept. 11 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese restaurant industry on Thursday called on the government to take steps to help it weather possible impacts of a planned consumption tax cut for food.

Japan currently imposes the 10 pct consumption tax on meals served at restaurants while setting the rate for food, including takeout, at 8 pct. The planned tax cut calls for lowering the rate for food to 1 pct for two years while keeping that for dining out at 10 pct.

Atsushi Mukumoto, chairman of the Japan Foodservice Association, told a press conference that the government should compile demand-boosting measures, such as premium meal vouchers, to cover the wider tax gap.

Mukumoto said restaurants are a food infrastructure that supports consumers' lives and that having two different charges for the same meals, one for takeout and the other for consumption at restaurants, already gives rise to various negative effects.

The restaurant industry suffered a decline of about 5 pct in customer traffic after the reduced tax rate of 8 pct was applied to takeout in 2019, he said. The chairman expressed concern that restaurants will lose more customers once the tax is lowered to 1 pct.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]