Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said a tax increase will be needed to fund his ambitious expansion of defense spending, but it won’t start next year.
It will cost an extra ¥4 trillion ($29.2 billion) a year to bolster defense and related spending, most of which will come from cuts in expenditure, surpluses and non-tax revenue, Kishida said at his official residence Thursday. The remainder — about ¥1 trillion — will come from taxes, but won’t involve an increase in income tax, he said.
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Kishida has already ordered a 56% rise in core defense spending over the five years from April, bringing the total including related expenditure to 2% of gross domestic product, a departure from the pacifist country’s long-held limit of 1%.
“I won’t take measures that will increase income tax on individuals,” he said. “I won’t increase the burden on the public from the next fiscal year, but will consider doing it by stages over several years to 2027,” he added.
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Spooked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tensions over Taiwan, Japan is in the process of upgrading its national security strategy. Officials and politicians have been wrangling over where to find the funds required to increase its defense budget.