戦前日本における大蔵省の所得税思想

－「社会政策的税制」の再検討－

抄録

This article studies the Ministry of Finance’s philosophy on income taxes in Meiji and Taisho Japan. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, it reexamines “tax reform as social policy” in Taisho Japan. Second, it reveals aspects of the Ministry’s taxation philosophy that lasted until the postwar period. Previous research on Taisho‒era tax reforms has focused on the relationship between the tax reforms and “social policy.” The tax reform of 1920, considered a major example of “tax reform as social policy,” has received particular attention: its inclusion of dividends in taxable income in particular is attributed to the taxation and social policy theories of the Japan Association for Social Policy Studies.

In contrast with the previous studies, this work reveals other factors leading to the 1920 tax reform by following MOF discussions of income tax going back to the Meiji period. First, the general principle of taxing dividend income did not arise out of a “social policy” context but was consistent with the income tax system envisioned by the MOF since Meiji. The MOF consistently supported a general income tax levied on aggregate income as well as differentiation of the income tax such that earned income would be taxed more lightly than unearned (capital) income. Second, for the MOF, the emergence of the “social policy” debate simply represented a “good opportunity” to bring about the general taxation of dividend income. The chief of the MOF’s National Tax Section of the Tax Bureau, KATSU Masanori, who played an important role in the 1920 income tax reform, regarded general taxation of dividend income as essential for a fair tax system. He took advantage of the “social policy” debate to propose the income tax reform. In the 1930s the MOF proposed the so‒called Baba Tax Reform Plan, which attempted a comprehensive general income taxation. The Tax Bureau, moreover, regarded the comprehensive system of income tax recommended by the Shoup Mission during the postwar US occupation of Japan as the “ideal” tax system. MOF consistently embraced this tax philosophy from Meiji into the postwar period.