This program allows taxpayers, who donate to local municipalities, to be able to deduct amount contributed from next year's tax, so-called Furusato tax or Furusato Nozei in Japanese. Since 2008, it initially has begun to support municipalities that suffer decreasing tax revenue by drifting population toward urban centers. In this tax reduction system, taxpayers currently living in urban centers can pay certain contributions to their distant hometown and be eligible to an exemption from resident tax next fiscal year.
Don't you think it's a beautiful system? Unfortunately, the current program has seemed to be evolved in an unexpected direction. The beginning of evolution was that a municipality started to send its specialty product in return for a donation. Which means, the specialty product became a strong motivation in selecting which municipality to support. One of the rules allowed taxpayers to select any municipality even if there were no relations like to the are. Now, most of municipalities prepare appealing specialty products and majority of donators select the municipality by judging which one worth more, I think. It's like online shopping!
I'm one of the people attracted by practical specialty products. Meat. Meat is the my first choice, everyone. I don't have much time to go to supermarkets since frozen and subdivided meats are genuinely convenient for me. There are so many long shelf-life products as well. Additionally, the products are, so to speak, endorsed by each municipality, as the product that represents their quality of the region, which should have the best of what they have, I don't have to worry about bad quality like usual online shopping. Just take a look at that gorgeous pic on top!
