JCCU released a flash report about 2017 "Survey on Consumption Tax" through registered monitors of Co-op members from 31 consumer co-ops with an aggregate target of 341 households in a 12-month investigation period from January to December 2017.

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 2017 the consumption tax rate was 8% and the annual consumption tax per household was 240,145 yen on average, decreasing by 4,111 yen from 2016. This is 3.79% of average income of the target, which is 0.08 point increase compared with 2016.

For the household receiving annual income less than 4 million yen the percentage of revenue were 5.72% which is an increase of 0.51 point compared to 2016.

For household receiving annual income between 6-7 million yen the percentage revenue decreased by 0.38 points.

On the other hand, for households receiving 10 million yen or more, it was 2.80%, an increase of 0.13 points from the previous year.

For annual household income less than 4 million yen, the annual consumption tax ratio to income was 2.04 times (previous year 1.95 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”. 2017 survey had it 4.82% and 3.34% respectively.