明治期の酒税政策 (日本における酒造業の展開 : 近世から近代へ)

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This article is concerned with the position of sake in the government's tax revenues in comparison with that of the land tax. We want to know why the revenue from the sake tax accounted for over 30%, and what problems it created. Indeed, one of the urgent tasks the Meiji government had to accomplish at an early stage was to built its financial fundamentals. When the government got into financial trouble, the authorities concerned relied mainly upon a revenue from the increased sake tax, not from the land tax, which was found difficult to increase. Great emphasis was placed on securing a revenue from sake, and this was paticularly marked marked under MATSUKATA's financial policy. This is why the sake conference was held in 1882. After the Sino-Japanese War, the importance of the sake tax in the government budget increased more than before, which prompted various debates. In this paper, a confrontation between advocates for ad valorem and for specific duties, as well as the question of if all the tax increases were actually passed on to the consumers, are given special attention. With such tax increases, adopted were measures to make home brewing illgal and to raise the minimum grewing limits. By the intensified efforts of the Tax Administrative Organization concerning these measures, the control over home brewing and illegal manufacture of sake became effective. After the Russo-Japanese War, the government set up a special tax commission at which a new tax system was discussed in the purpose of adjusting the system to various difficulties created by the wartime budget. In so doing, at the commission, various issues concerning the sake tax were taken up. This paper gives an account for the arguments put forward within the commision, and points out that there was a change in the tax structure due to an increase in taxation after the war. Since indirect taxes, of which the sake tax was the most important, increased gradually, revenues from them became greater than those from direct taxes. While the proportion of direct and indirect taxes was 51.6% and 48.4% respectively in 1905, it stood at 42.3% and 57.7% in 1912. Sake was the single largest consumption tax, accounting for 53.4% of the revenues from indirect taxes, or 28.3% of the total national tax revenues in 1909. The sake tax thus exemplifies a tendency to heavy taxation during the Meiji period.
社会経済史学会の論文
1989-08-31

明治期の酒税政策 (日本における酒造業の展開 : 近世から近代へ)

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