Lobsters, Hot Air Balloons and the Hometown Tax: A Japanese Model for Revitalizing Rural Economies in the United States

57 Pages Posted: 9 Nov 2017 Last revised: 18 Feb 2018

See all articles by Janet Kanzawa

Janet Kanzawa

Columbia University - Columbia Business Law Review; Columbia University, Law School, Students

Date Written: November 6, 2017

Abstract

Many municipalities in the United States are short of the tax revenue they need and have had to cut spending on public goods, which has lowered the quality of life for their residents. Municipalities in Japan face the same problem. Japan has developed an effective method for raising tax revenue for local governments and revitalizing languishing economies. Japan’s “Hometown Tax” system empowers taxpayers to divert tax revenue from affluent urban governments to struggling rural governments, stimulates local businesses and enables rural governments to be more autonomous and financially independent.

Under the Hometown Tax, a taxpayer that makes a charitable contribution to a local government receives a tax deduction and credit amounting to almost the entire value of the charitable contribution. At almost no extra cost, the taxpayer can select a Return Gift to receive from a local business in the region. Return Gifts range from deliveries of fresh locally-caught lobsters to vouchers for hot air balloon rides, and are listed on online portals that connect taxpayers to municipal and prefectural governments throughout Japan. The online portals have also become donation channels for regions experiencing natural disasters.

Transplanting the Hometown Tax system would require the implementation of state and municipal tax credits in addition to currently-existing deductions, and allowing for Return Gift selection would require the modification of U.S. quid pro quo contribution law. Japan’s Hometown Tax has risks, including an excessive diversion of tax revenue from highly populated areas to rural areas.

This Note concludes that given its potential to remedy the under-funding of local governments, increase the demand for goods produced by local businesses and thereby improve the financial state facing many of its local governments, the United States should institute some variation of a Hometown Tax system.

Suggested Citation

Kanzawa, Janet, Lobsters, Hot Air Balloons and the Hometown Tax: A Japanese Model for Revitalizing Rural Economies in the United States (November 6, 2017). Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 1100 (2017)., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3066393

Janet Kanzawa (Contact Author)

Columbia University - Columbia Business Law Review

New York, NY
United States

Columbia University, Law School, Students ( email )

435 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10025
United States

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