TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s government has revised up its estimates of national tax revenue from the last fiscal year ended in March, as a weak yen and economic recovery from the pandemic helped boost big firms’ profits, a draft seen by Reuters showed on Monday.
The fiscal 2021 tax revenue was likely to come to 67.0 trillion yen ($496.15 billion), a record for a second straight year, with the three major tax revenues from the sales tax, corporate tax and income tax, all revised up from earlier estimates.
Bigger-than-expected tax revenues tend to prompt lawmakers to call for more spending to support a fragile economic recovery, as they would likely result in more unused budget.
Fiscal law stipulates that half of the budget left over from the previous fiscal year can be spent on an extra budget that may be compiled later in the current fiscal year.
($1 = 135.0400 yen)
(Reporting by Takaya Yamaguchi; writing by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)
