The problem: tax receipts are distributed inequitably among local governments, because everyone grows up and builds human capital in e.g. the countryside but then goes to the city (Tokyo, or Osaka / Nagoya, but really, Tokyo) to earn money, so Tokyo gets all the benefits.
-
-
Show this thread
-
Thus the Furosato Nouzei system: You can choose to "donate" up to 40% of your residence tax to a local government of your choice in Japan. This gets matched with a 1:1 tax deduction against your residence tax the following year. OK, fairly straightforward. But:
Show this thread -
Governments now know that 40% of the residence tax of Tokyo/etc is "in play", so how do they convince you to go through filling out a form to give it to them? Answer: they give you a token of appreciation for the donation.
Show this thread -
The original idea was "Thanks for the money. Remember canned plums, the locally-produced taste of your childhood? Here, have some plums." And that worked for a while... right until some bright soul decided "Hey wait a second... this is *a market*."
Show this thread -
"There is no requirement that you donate to a place you have an actual connection to. Not a bug, that's a feature: assessing connections would be hard and maybe you feel a special connection to the town you met your wife in even if you don't live there. What if..."
Show this thread -
"... what if your special connection to us was We Outbid Every Other Town In Japan Bwahaha?" And oh by God did they execute competently at it. And, predictably, an arms race ensued.
Show this thread -
The current detente appears to be "If you donate $5k we will give you a $2.5k cash equivalent (like e.g. a $2.5k voucher for Japan's largest travel agent)." Rationally speaking they should literally bid the price of a donation to 100% minus epsilon but I think collusion.
Show this thread -
And so now there is a web frontend on this to make sure that as many people take advantage of the system as possible. And you can even see towns specializing in whether they're going for straight-up economic incentives, SEO on that site, etc. Crikey. I could lose a day.
Show this thread -
"For [a donation of approximately $100], we will send someone out to a loved one's grave site within city limits, clean their grave, make an appropriate offering, and send you a photo." I expect opinions will be divided on this but I appreciate the person who thought of that.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
1) This scheme is glorious. 2) Holy crap, Google Translate is good. I was actually able to hit "translate" and understand a complicated financial website in its entirety.
-
Google Translate is probably better at complicated legal and financial text than everyday conversation due to training data availability
- 2 more replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.