Tokyo (Reuters) – A draught seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed that Japan had a budget of $22.4 trillion yen ($161.41 billion) left over from the last fiscal year. This may raise questions about how stimulus measures are used, say analysts.
The draught showed that the extra money in the budget for the fiscal year 2021 came on top of about 30 trillion yen that was left over from the fiscal year before. It also showed that 6.3 trillion yen, which had been planned for in the budget for the last fiscal year, were “not needed.”
Some analysts say that the numbers, which were calculated by the Ministry of Finance as it closed the books on the last fiscal year, which ended in March, may raise questions about how well heavy fiscal stimulus is being used.
Takuya Hoshino, a senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, said, “It doesn’t matter how big the stimulus is. What matters is how it should be used more efficiently. “
“The complicated process of applying for subsidies and other administrative applications can be overwhelming for both public and private sector workers.”
Japan has a rule that the budget for a given year has to be used up by the end of the same fiscal year.
Top lawmakers are still likely to call for a big fiscal stimulus. They have elections for the upper house on July 10, and the government is trying to get the economy going again after COVID and other problems with the global supply chain.
Japan’s initial budget for the fiscal year 2021 was 106.6 trillion yen, and it later added a supplementary budget of 35.9 trillion yen to help prevent pandemics and help businesses and households.
The tax revenue for fiscal 2021 was revised up to 67.0 trillion yen, which is an all-time high and an increase of 3.1 trillion yen from earlier estimates. This is a result of the sales tax, the corporate tax, and the income tax all being revised.
The draught showed that because taxes brought in more money than expected, the government was able to cut bond sales by 8 trillion yen out of the 65.6 trillion yen it had planned to sell.
($1 = 136.3000 yen)
