74% of Japan’s LDP Candidates Favor Tax Cut, But Caution Remains

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:02 JST, February 4, 2026

Although 74% of candidates in the Liberal Democratic Party favor a limited reduction to the consumption tax rate, 20% believe the current rate should be maintained, reflecting a somewhat cautious approach within the party ahead of Sunday’s House of Representatives election, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

The survey – which was sent to every candidate running for the lower house – began ahead of the official start of campaigning to clarify the candidates’ positions on various issues such as the consumption tax. Of the 1,285 candidates, 1,251 responded, representing a response rate of about 97%.

Those who responded negatively toward a tax cut include current Cabinet members and party executives, highlighting that a certain degree of caution remains within the party.

When asked which policy best reflected their views on the current 10% consumption tax, 47% of the total respondents chose “a limited cut,” while 43% supported “a permanent reduction or its abolition” and 8% said “the current rate should be maintained.”

By party, a limited cut was the most common answer among LDP candidates at 74%, likely reflecting the party’s campaign pledge to accelerate discussions on making food and beverage tax-exempt for two years. The 20% of LDP candidates who preferred to keep the current rate had the second most common response.

Candidates favoring the status quo included several prominent figures: Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi; Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa; and Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Yasushi Kaneko.

This view was also held by party figures such as former Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba, and Itsunori Onodera, chairperson of the Research Commission on the Tax System, along with other senior commission members. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is also the LDP president, did not respond to the survey.

With the 16-day period from the lower house’s dissolution to election day on Sunday being the shortest in the postwar era, Takaichi put forward the plan for a reduction of the consumption tax at a press conference announcing the dissolution on Jan. 19.

The difference in responses among LDP candidates possibly stems from the abruptness of the announcement right before the election and its limited phrasing of “accelerating discussions,” even though the policy is based on a coalition agreement with the LDP’s partner, the Japan Innovation Party.

The LDP campaign platform also attaches a condition to a consumption tax reduction, stating that the party will debate the issue in a bipartisan national council following the lower house election.

In last year’s House of Councillors election, when the party did not include a consumption tax cut in its platform, 72% of its candidates favored maintaining the status quo in response to the same question.

Among other parties, the percentage of candidates from the JIP that supported either a limited or permanent tax cut or its abolition reached 98% in total.

Figures were also high for the Centrist Reform Alliance at 97%, the Democratic Party for the People at 95% and Sanseito at 100%.

Meanwhile, all candidates from Team Mirai favored maintaining the status quo.

The survey also asked candidates to name up to three priority issues for the election.

The “economy and employment” led at 71%, while “child-rearing support” and social security issues such as “pensions, medical care and nursing care” shared second place at 36%. The consumption tax ranked fourth at 33%.