TOKYO -- An ambitious remark by the head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry about lowering the nation's corporate levy has rattled nerves at a finance ministry cautious about any reduction in tax revenue.
"We aim to lower the effective corporate tax rate by at least 2.5 percentage points next fiscal year," METI chief Yoichi Miyazawa said Monday in a meeting with the head of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, and others. Earlier, the ministry had called for a roughly 2-point cut in the first year of a multiyear reduction in the effective corporate tax rate from roughly 35% to below 30%.

