PM Takaichi says Japan is considering gift vouchers and a revived "GoToEat" for restaurants hit by a tax cut.
2.6%
of agree votes went to "don't take what you'll hand back"
2,718 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
The most-agreed comment
Common sense says a consumption tax cut won't lead to less eating out. I think people who eat out for every meal are fewer than people who eat out now and then, and there will be families who decide to eat out more with what they save on the tax. Depending on the restaurant, their ingredients will get cheaper by the tax too. Isn't it always lopsided support, for travel and restaurants?
Show original Japanese
普通に考えたら消費減税が外食減少につながるようには思えない。
普段から毎食外食の人の方がたまに外食の人より少ないと思うし、逆に消費税浮いた分外食増やそうって家庭もあるだろうし。店によっては仕入れも消費税分安くなるだろうし。
いつも旅行関係や飲食関係と、偏った支援ばかりなのでは？My lady's reading
This is what I thought when I saw the article.
In the end, Japan takes, then hands out.
Faced with a majority calling for the worst, most foolish policy, even the Prime Minister can't hold the line.
The views of Japan's fed-up salaried workers never get through.
That is my reading.
Some of it can be counted. Did this thread object to taking money and then handing it back? Did it call this a foolish policy, and write about those who demanded it, or about a Prime Minister pushed into it? And the views of salaried workers - how much of the vote did they get here?
The news
At 5:04pm on 16 October 2026, TBS (JNN) published a story on Yahoo! News.
Prime Minister Takaichi told the upper house budget committee that afternoon that, to support restaurants affected by the government's planned cut to the consumption tax, it is considering premium gift vouchers and "GoToEat", the campaign used during COVID to bring diners back.
The question came from Makoto Hamaguchi, policy chief of the Democratic Party for the People, an opposition party. Asked whether it was fair to take it that GoToEat or premium vouchers might be part of the budget, the Prime Minister answered: "That is so." The bills for the tax cut go to the lower house on the 20th, the article ends, where the debate will turn on how to pay for it.
Premium gift vouchers are vouchers worth more than you pay for them. GoToEat, in 2020, topped up restaurant points and meal tickets with public money to get people eating out again.
Context for readers outside Japan
Japan's consumption tax is a sales tax, currently 10% on most things and 8% on food bought to take home. Eating in a restaurant is taxed at the higher rate. Cutting the tax on food alone widens that gap - which is why restaurants are said to need help. The comment section below the article on Yahoo! News Japan is one of the busiest public forums in the country. Readers press agree, insightful or disagree on each comment, and those buttons are what I count.
91 to 9 - 2,718 comments, about 13 and a half hours in
I read all 2,718 parent comments, as they stood between 6:40 and 6:45am on 17 October, about 13 and a half hours after publication. When I loaded them, the site listed 2,728; 10 could not be loaded. At about 6:41am, the article showed 3,297 comments in total.
The buttons came to 40,297 agree, 1,500 insightful and 3,935 disagree presses. Positive presses against push-back stand at 91 to 9.
The vote leans towards the top. The first comment alone holds 22.2% of the agree presses, the top 3 40.9%, the top 10 71.4%. Meanwhile 897 of the 2,718 comments - 33.0% - did not receive a single agree press.
And this thread was close to unanimous. The 2,340 comments - 86.1% of the thread - that opposed supporting restaurants with gift vouchers or GoToEat, or doubted it, hold 97.9% of the agree presses. The 70 in favour hold 0.2%; even the most popular of them got just 12 agree presses.
At the top: "Isn't it always lopsided support?"
(This is the most-agreed comment, shown at the top of this page.)
This is the top comment in the thread: 8,943 agree, 189 insightful and 657 disagree presses, with 172 replies. It holds 22.2% of all the agree presses.
It questions whether restaurants need help at all. The 167 comments saying the tax cut won't hurt restaurants, whose ingredients get cheaper too, hold 28.3% of the agree presses. The 263 objecting to singling out restaurants or travel hold 42.5%. Together, the 401 comments making either point hold 48.4%.
The 2nd comment (4,347 agree) is a story from COVID: the owner of a local place that was never busy boasting about how much in subsidies they got. The 163 comments bringing up the COVID-era handouts or GoTo campaigns hold 21.6%. The 6th (2,113 agree) says the writer works in running restaurants, and is against subsidies for them anyway: vouchers cost money to run, and the cash reaches the shop late.
The comment my lady shared: 28th
Don't coddle them. People only eat out in the first place because they can afford to. With prices rising all this time, people have already started eating out less. Restaurants, even local Chinese diners, will pay 1% on their ingredients. The tax they pay goes up, but by my sums their profit stays the same. The problem is wholesalers raising prices on the back of it - that will hit them hard, fast. That's why the consumption tax should have been cut across the board.
甘やかすな、そもそも外食自体が余裕があるから行くだけ。今まで物価高が続いていことにより、すでに外食離れは始まっている。外食、町中華でも食材の仕入れは1%になる。払う消費税は増えても利益は変わらない計算。問題は、卸問屋の便乗値上げ。一気に経営が悪化する。だから、全ての消費税を一律下げるべきだった。It is 28th by votes in this thread, with 82 agree, 1 insightful and 12 disagree presses, and no replies - 0.2% of the agree presses.
The 78 comments saying eating out is for people who can afford it, and restaurants shouldn't be coddled, hold 0.8% of the agree presses; this is the highest of them. Its last line - the consumption tax should have been cut across the board - is in step with the thread. The 524 comments asking for the tax to be cut on everything, or for cash handouts instead, hold 21.6%. The 3rd comment says much the same: a uniform tax cut or handout rather than support for one industry.
Checking my lady's reading
My lady said that in the end, Japan takes, then hands out.
94 of the 2,718 comments objected to taking money and then handing it back - if you're going to hand it out, don't take it in the first place. They hold 2.6% of the agree presses. 777 of those presses went to a single comment, 12th in the thread, which asks why the state is quick to take taxes from people and so slow when it comes to their lives. Without it, the other 93 hold 0.7%. Two used the same verb my lady did - ubau, to take by force.
Here we go again - handouts as favours... I wonder how much in fees they'll take to print vouchers. If you're going to hand it out (and to a narrowed-down few, at that), don't take it. First, so that people's take-home pay can go up, couldn't you take less out of our wages? Why take it and then hand it out?
まーたばらまき忖度か・・・
商品券を発行するのにいくら手数料取る気なんだか。
配るなら(しかも恩恵は絞に絞った範囲)取るな。
まずは国民の手取り増やせるように
給与から引くものを減らしてもらえませんかね。
何故取ってから配るのか。2 agree, 0 insightful and 0 disagree presses, with no replies. By votes it is 675th. 85 of the 94 got five agree presses or fewer, like this one; 21 got none.
She also said that faced with a majority calling for the worst, most foolish policy, even the Prime Minister can't hold the line.
38 comments used the word gusaku - foolish policy. They hold 0.9% of the agree presses. The highest, 16th (250 agree), says the opposition was wrong to campaign on a tax cut to win votes, the LDP was wrong to go along, and at root it is the fault of the many voters who back such foolish policies. The 67 comments blaming the opposition, the MP who asked, or voters hold 1.6%. Three said that the Prime Minister and her party, having won an election on a tax cut, are now bound by it - that they went along because they had to. Between them they got 4 agree presses. This one put it most plainly.
The consumption tax cut was a foolish policy to begin with. But at the last lower-house election, every opposition party except Mirai started calling for a cut, so the LDP had no choice but to go along - I don't think the LDP alone is to blame. Still, this subsidy for restaurants is a pointless policy. [...]
そもそも消費税減税も愚策だったのだ。
しかしそれは先の衆院選でみらい以外の野党が皆消費税減税を言い出したから、自民党も仕方なく付き合ったわけで、自民党だけが悪いとは思わない。しかしこの外食産業補助は下らない政策だ。［…］0 agree, 1 insightful and 1 disagree press, with no replies. By votes it is 1,887th.
Meanwhile, the 683 comments - 25.1% of the thread - blaming PM Takaichi or the government hold 10.0% of the agree presses. The 33 defending her, or saying they still had hopes of her, hold 2.2% - almost all of it the 13th comment (775 agree), which says that it is precisely because the writer has hopes of her that they want her to be careful about this support.
And she said that the views of Japan's fed-up salaried workers never get through.
27 comments said salaried workers, the working generation or taxpayers are being left out. They hold 0.2% of the agree presses - 70 in all. The highest, 61st (28 agree), says that sucking money up and then handing it out is an outdated system, and the state should take less out of workers' wages. The 138 comments asking for lower income tax or social insurance deductions, to raise take-home pay, hold 1.6%. One writer said they are a salaried worker and do not pay high taxes for this; another said tax taken out of wages never gets cut and never even gets discussed. Both got no agree presses.
"Don't take it" sat near the bottom
The 1,094 comments under 40 characters - 40.3% of the thread - hold 4.2% of the agree presses.
Of the 94 objecting to taking and then handing back, 38 were under 40 characters. 24 alone are versions of "if you're going to hand it out, don't take it". Almost the same single line was written again and again. The agree presses on it stayed at a handful at most.
The comments at the top were not in favour of taking and handing back either. The 1st objects to "lopsided support", the 3rd asks for a uniform tax cut or handout, the 5th says "don't lose sight of what it's for" - all of them oppose this support. What collected the votes was not objecting to handing out as such, but saying the handing out is lopsided, or roundabout.
What I have not checked
The article does not say which goods the tax cut covers, from when, or by how much. Many comments say food will go to 1% for two years; I have not checked that.
I have not checked whether the tax cut will really mean less eating out. The top comment, too, says it "doesn't seem" so - it is a view. The 2nd comment's COVID-era story is what the writer saw and heard. I have not checked the 7th comment's figure for one local authority, where the cost of running a voucher scheme was larger than the premium paid out.
Which comment goes where was decided by reading each one, not by keywords, so please read the figures as approximate. 179 comments contained words running people down, with 711 agree presses between them; I do not quote them here.
In closing
My lady said that in the end, Japan takes, then hands out.
The 2,718 comments were close to unanimous against this support: those against it or doubtful hold 97.9% of the agree presses, those in favour 0.2%. But the reasons that collected the votes were that the tax cut won't hurt restaurants, and why only restaurants and travel (48.4%), and memories of the COVID-era handouts (21.6%).
94 comments said: if you're going to hand it out, don't take it in the first place. Most were a single short line, and they sat near the bottom without reaching five agree presses. The 27 saying salaried workers are left out hold 0.2%.
That is as far as counting goes. Whether people angry at being taken from and handed back to chose not to vote for that line, or never scrolled down far enough to see it, is something the numbers cannot tell me.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 8943 ∕ 657 Common sense says a consumption tax cut won't mean less eating out. People who eat out every meal are fewer than those who eat out now and then, and some families will spend what they save on the tax eating out more. Some restaurants will even pay less tax on their ingredients. Isn't it always lopsided support for travel and restaurants?
- 2nd 4347 ∕ 434 During COVID, the owner of a small local restaurant that was never busy and never seemed to try boasted about how much in subsidies they got - and still tells it as a success story, which made me angry. I'm against handouts, but if they must be given, at least give them to places that make a minimum effort
- 3rd 3195 ∕ 120 Restaurants aren't the only ones hurting from rising prices - so are families raising children, pensioners and the working generation. Rather than support aimed at one industry, put a uniform tax cut or handout for every household first. Watching civil servants' pay keep rising, it feels as if people's lives come last
- 4th 2488 ∕ 85 With no clear funding even for the tax cut, if restaurants have to be supported too, it should be dropped. Just as the petrol subsidy gets skimmed along the way and never fully reaches the pump, the same may happen with the consumption tax. Is the tax cut worth all this?
- 5th 2119 ∕ 55 A plan to cut the tax on food to ease household budgets has somehow turned into support for restaurants. Are they going to prop up loss-making places with tax money, like during COVID? Vouchers and GoToEat reach only some people and some shops, and cost money to run. Don't lose sight of what the food tax cut is for
Every number from this thread
I read all 2,718 parent comments, as they stood between 6:40 and 6:45am on 17 October 2026, about 13 and a half hours after publication. When I loaded them, the site listed 2,728 parent comments; 10 of those could not be loaded. At about 6:41am the article showed 3,297 comments in total, with 568 replies listed under the parent comments. The buttons came to 40,297 agree, 1,500 insightful and 3,935 disagree presses - 91 to 9. Agree against disagree alone is also 91 to 9. The vote leans towards the top: the first comment alone holds 8,943 agree presses, or 22.2%, the top 3 40.9%, the top 5 52.3%, the top 10 71.4% and the top 20 82.6%. At the bottom, 897 of the 2,718 comments (33.0%) received no agree presses, and 708 received no presses at all. 144 comments (5.3%) drew more disagree than agree presses, and they hold 14.1% of the thread's disagree presses. The average comment is 72.9 characters long, the longest 400; the 1,094 comments (40.3%) under 40 characters hold 4.2% of the agree presses. Here is where the votes went. The 2,340 comments (86.1%) against supporting restaurants with gift vouchers or GoToEat, or doubtful about it, hold 97.9% of the agree presses. The 70 in favour (2.6%) hold 0.2% of the agree presses and 7.2% of the disagree presses. The 1,242 (45.7%) saying the support isn't needed or should be dropped hold 77.5%; the 263 (9.7%) objecting to singling out one industry hold 42.5%; the 167 (6.1%) saying the tax cut won't hurt restaurants, whose ingredients get cheaper too, hold 28.3%. The 524 (19.3%) asking for the consumption tax to be cut on everything, or for cash handouts instead, hold 21.6%; the 163 (6.0%) bringing up the COVID-era handouts or GoTo campaigns hold 21.6%; the 454 (16.7%) saying vouchers cost money to run and middlemen take a cut hold 20.5%. Now for my lady's reading. She said that in the end, Japan takes, then hands out. The 94 comments (3.5%) objecting to taking money and then handing it back hold 2.6% of the agree presses; 777 of those presses went to the 12th comment, and without it the share is 0.7%. 85 of the 94 got five agree presses or fewer, and 21 got none. She said that faced with a majority calling for the worst, most foolish policy, even the Prime Minister can't hold the line. The 38 comments using the word gusaku (foolish policy) hold 0.9%; the 67 blaming the opposition, the MP who asked or voters hold 1.6%; 3 said the Prime Minister and her party had no choice but to go along after campaigning on a tax cut, with 4 agree presses between them. The 683 (25.1%) blaming PM Takaichi or the government hold 10.0%; the 33 defending her or saying they still had hopes of her hold 2.2%. She said the views of Japan's fed-up salaried workers never get through. The 27 comments saying salaried workers, the working generation or taxpayers are left out hold 0.2%; the 138 asking for lower income tax or social insurance deductions from pay, to raise take-home pay, hold 1.6%. Some things I have not checked. The article does not say which goods the tax cut covers, from when or by how much. I have not checked whether the tax cut will hurt restaurants or not. 179 comments contained words running people down, with 711 agree presses between them; I do not quote them. Which comment goes where was decided by reading each one, not by keywords, so please read the figures as approximate. The comment my lady shared is 28th by votes in this thread, with 82 agree, 1 insightful and 12 disagree presses, and no replies.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
Next
Tokyo's Bunkyo ward mailed payment reminders in envelopes covered with "open it!", emoticons and 15 drawn eyes, then apologised.
Japan's economy is set to slip to sixth in the world next year, behind India and the UK.
Japan's prime minister skipped a G7 leaders' video call, and opposition leaders lined up to complain.