* Japan Mulls Unified Tax System For Unlisted Stocks
It has emerged that the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is considering making a recommendation that trading in unlisted stocks be covered by a new unified taxation system for financial transactions.
The proposed move, which comes as part of the government's wider tax reform plan for fiscal 2005, is designed to facilitate investment in start-up companies. Commodity futures and commodity funds would also likely be included in the list of financial transactions covered by the unified taxation system.
According to a report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the single taxation system would tax capital gains and losses on investment in various sorts of financial instruments on a combined basis, meaning that investors can offset profits and losses made on different types of instrument, and therefore reduce their tax liability.
