Major supermarket stores in Japan have launched campaigns to boost
spending by offering "5% discount on all goods to return the eqivalent
of the consumption tax".
The Japanese economy was plunged into recession when the GST was
increased from 3% to 5% last year.
The Japanese government is so worried about the economy it will issue
shopping vouchers worth 20,000 Yen to 35 million people at a total
cost of over 700 billion Yen plus 3.5 billion Yen in printing and
administration costs. Thus the government will be effectively
returning the tax raised on 400,000 Yen spending per customer.
