S/ Onodera Itsunori, LDP tax commission chairperson / If we have the cooperation of other parties, we would lower the consumption tax by 7 percentage points to 1% next April and provide the remaining 1% simultaneously as benefits. This involves about 600 billion yen in financial resources, but with it, we can distribute the benefits firmly to low- and middle-income earners. I explained this proposal to the prime minister.

Onodera, as chairperson of the National Council on Social Security which is discussing measures including consumption tax cuts, has proposed reducing the sales tax for food and beverages from the current 8 percent to 1 percent for two years starting April 2027.

As for the 1 percent consumption tax, the proposal calls for providing income-based benefits to low- and middle-income working individuals to effectively reduce the tax rate to zero.

A senior government official who attended the meeting between Takaichi and Onodera said the prime minister asked that the proposal be finalized with speed and adequacy.

In a public opinion poll conducted on June 19 to 21 by NNN and The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, 52 percent of respondents said they were in favor of the tax cut proposal, while 38 percent said they oppose it.

In the same poll, the approval rating for the Takaichi Cabinet rose by 5 percentage points from the previous survey in May to 69 percent, while 21 percent said they do not support the administration.