The city of Kyoto in Japan is responding to a decline in population and the consequent phenomenon of empty dwellings by planning to introduce a tax to penalise those who leave them unattended for long periods.
However, the city still requires permission from the national revenue authorities and approval by the city council to implement the scheme.
This tax is widely seen as an attempt to grapple with Japan’s demographic decline. Japan’s birth rate is roughly 1.34 per woman of childbearing age, which is among the lowest in the world. The Financial Times reports that the country is losing some 1 500 people a day, and is seeing ever decreasing numbers of people entering adulthood. Japan also has very little immigration.
The demand for homes in some places is steadily dropping, and abandoned and derelict units are becoming a feature of some cityscapes. In 2018, some 14% of Japan’s housing stock was unoccupied.
The tax is meant to discourage the abandonment of properties or failure to maintain them.
Hiroyuki Nakagami, who is promoting the tax, was quoted in the Financial Times as saying the measure is ‘expected to widen the choices of residences which are still not on the distribution market, so that we don’t leave these assets idle but deliver them to the next generation.’
Japan’s demographic decline, more extreme than in many other developed countries, has led to speculation about its economic future.
[Image: Pedro Szekely, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76119794]