Japan to put off tax hike to cover increased defense spending

Japan plans to put off for now a tax hike intended to finance a planned increase in the country's defense spending, a government source said Sunday.The government will continue to study measures to secure a stable source of revenue as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called for raising defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product in fiscal 2027 from the current 1 percent.The government will set the general direction of the plan but is likely to forego deciding on a specific tax increase when it compiles the initial budget for fiscal 2023 in late December, the source said.It inten…READ FULL ARTICLE