Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso holds a news conference after the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ meeting at the IMF and World Bank’s 2019 Annual Spring Meetings, in Washington, April 12, 2019. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan
April 19, 2019
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Friday there was no change in the government’s stance that it would go ahead with a planned sales tax hike in October, barring a big economic shock on the scale of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Aso made the comment a day after a close aide of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a TV program that the planned tax increase may be postponed depending on the results of the central bank’s next tankan business survey due out in July.
The tax hike to 10 percent from the current 8 percent would secure stable financial resources to pay for the bulging cost of social security for all generations, Aso told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
