1. Tax Incentives on capital investment

Tax incentives to promote capital investment should meet the following requests.

1. It should be user-friendly, simple and universal incentives which do not require authorization by any particular law or mandatory conditions such as year-on-year increase in investment amounts. Also, capital investment in the following areas -- manufacturing of new products and high value-added products, reinforcement of production capacity, improvement of productive efficiency, energy saving, quake resistance (including measures against tsunami), renewals, etc. -- should be regarded as activities which satisfy the definition of "replacing the old with the new" in a broad sense.

2. Develop incentives in which tax credit becomes an applicable option in addition to special depreciation (including immediate depreciation).

3. Qualifying assets should include not only machinery and equipment but also structures, software and buildings.

4. Non-manufacturing industries too should be qualified for application of the incentives.

5. Carryback of losses for major corporations in terms of loss on retirement of existing facilities and equipment needs to be approved as well.

6. These measures need to be maintained for at least five years. They should also become applicable from FY 2013.

7. Since capital investment promotion is part of the national strategies, it is necessary to ensure consistency with local taxes with regard to assets eligible for reduction and exemption of corporate tax, through the property tax exemption on depreciable assets and other ways.

2. Tax incentives contributing to smooth business reorganization and promotion of new businesses

1. Under certain conditions, necessary measures should be taken so that losses made during the start-up period of a spinoff company are acknowledged based on the investment ratio at the original firm for the aggregation of profit and loss.

2. Improvement of a consolidated taxation system should be studied.

3. Venture investment by corporations should be promoted along with the review of the existing angel tax system.

It is also necessary to promptly start discussions to pave the way for further reduction of the effective corporate tax rate.