AMSTERDAM – The Japanese election topic of a zero percent tax on food products became world news. Political parties promised to reduce the consumption tax rate from 8 to zero percent on food products during the next two years, or even permanently. Keeping the rate on meat products at 8 percent is not yet considered as an option, but this tax policy is recommended by many international organizations.
Political parties want to reduce increased costs for living but investors and others are concerned about the impact on Japanese state debt, already very high compared to other rich countries. This could harm financing social security costs. Government estimates suggest that removing the 8 percent tax on food sales would reduce annual tax revenues by around 5 trillion yen.
In their flagship reports in 2024, the World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization recommended rich countries like Japan to have a zero consumer tax on vegetables and fruits, and increase the consumer tax on meat. Having no tax on healthy foods and higher consumer taxes on food products with negative impacts on health and climate — especially for meat — would be an ideal compromise for Japan. Food prices will go down for consumers and the state debt will not increase too much. Another option is to increase import tariffs on meat, dairy and animal feed.
Since Japan has a 10 percent consumer tax for nonfood and 8 percent for food products, keeping meat at 8 percent could be an option. But another option is to create a new consumer tax on meat products of 25-40 percent, like 37 yen per 100 grams of chicken meat and 85 yen per 100 grams of red and processed meat, based on “true price” calculations, including external health and environmental hidden costs for meat.
Each kilogram of beef causes 30 kg of greenhouse gas emissions, while damage costs related to 1 kg CO2 equivalent are 30 yen per kg, which totals to 900 yen damage costs per 1 kg of beef. Each additional kilogram of CO2 is causing damage somewhere in the world: sea level rises, lost harvests, hunger and more. The member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development already decided 25 years ago to apply the polluter pays principle in environmental and fiscal policies to reduce pollution.
In Europe, over 80 percent of the European Parliament voted in 2021 for a zero consumer tax for vegetables and fruit, and the highest tax rate for foods with negative impacts on public health or the environment. Hopefully Japanese politicians will vote for similar fiscal measures. In the last U.N. climate conference in Brazil, 28 low-income countries — including 21 Pacific small island states — urged high-income countries like Japan to increase taxes on meat products to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, partly for collecting climate finance revenues.
According to reports, Japanese meat consumption per capita in 2022 was 60 kg per year and 63 kg in 2023, above the average global meat consumption of approximately 50 kg. Meat has very high greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food products and is a contributor to biodiversity loss. Red and processed meat, consumed in high-income countries far above health recommendations and planetary boundaries, is linked to colon cancer, stroke and type-2 diabetes, causing high health care costs.
The Planetary Health Diet, devised by a group of scientists, advises a maximum meat consumption per capita of just 16 kg per year, around a quarter of average Japanese meat consumption. The diet’s developer, EAT-Lancet Commission recommends a maximum of one serving of red meat per week and two servings a week of chicken meat. A higher tax rate on meat will help to guide consumers towards this recommendation. This is needed for many reasons: health, climate and the economy.
(Jeroom Remmers is director of the True Animal Protein Price Coalition, a nonprofit organization for fair food prices, based in the Netherlands and a coalition of 80 partner organizations across the globe, advocating zero percent taxes on healthy food and taxes on meat and dairy.)
Dining and Cooking