JCCU released a flash report about 2016 "Survey on Consumption Tax" through registered monitors of Co-op members from 35 consumer co-ops with an aggregate target of 539 households in a 12-month investigation period from January 2016 to December 2016.

The survey based on the household account book of the co-op members and the calculated tax amount was obtained by subtracting the nontaxable expenses (such as rent and school education expenses) from consumption expenditure multiplied by the tax rate.

According to the survey results, in 2016 the consumption tax rate was 8% and the annual consumption tax per household was 244,256 yen on average, decreasing by 12,011 yen from 2015. This is 3.71% of average income of the target, which is 0.12 point decrease compared with 2015.

For the household receiving annual income less than 4 million yen and between 8-9 million yen the percentage of revenue were 5.21% and 3.44% respectively which are almost the same as the value obtained in 2015.

On the other hand, for households receiving 10 million yen or more, it was 2.67%, a decrease of 0.45 points from the previous year.

For annual household income less than 4 million yen, the annual consumption tax ratio to income was 1.95 times (previous year 1.74 times) more than household with income more than 10 million yen indicating that the tax burden rate is high for low-income households.

Like the previous years, the tax burden ratio for “pension household” has always been higher than the “salary household”. 2016 survey had it 4.92% and 3.34% respectively.