EXCLUSIVE: Japan Puts Off Obtaining Info on Elderly Financial Assets

August 14, 2018

Tokyo- The Japanese government is set to push back the deadline of the end-March 2019 for working out specifics of a plan to obtain information on the elderly's financial assets, such as savings and securities, through the My Number identification system for social security and taxation purposes, Jiji Press learned Monday.

The government believes the plan will be important in curbing ballooning social security costs. But it now thinks that the idea has yet to be accepted by the general public and that preparations have not made progress, informed sources said.

The government is expected to set a new deadline during its work late this year to compile a draft budget for fiscal 2019, which starts next April, the sources said.

With Japan's population aging and social security costs growing, the Ministry of Finance and others insist that elderly people with large savings should accept higher burdens for social security services even if their incomes are low.

A MOF estimate shows that the proportion of married couples aged 65 or over who have at least 20 million yen in financial assets stands at nearly 40 pct, compared with only less than 5 pct among couples aged under 40.

If an elderly person gets financial support for meals and living at nursing care homes, he or she needs to meet income limits and is also required to prove that the person's financial assets total 10 million yen or less.

Elderly people can obtain preferential treatment in principle, such as reduced out-of-pocket expenses for hospital visits, no matter how much they have in financial assets if their incomes are blow certain levels.

If the My Number system is improved, it would become easier for authorities to get information from deposit and securities accounts, and figure out how much the elderly have in financial assets.

A reform roadmap for the government's economic and fiscal revitalization program calls for necessary measures to be set out by the March 2019 end of fiscal 2018.

But little discussion has been made within the government, and coordination with the financial industry has also made little progress.

A welfare ministry official said, "It will be difficult to put together concrete measures by the end of fiscal 2018."

Elderly people would certainly oppose having their financial assets watched by the government and facing higher social security burdens.

In addition, the coalition government of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its partner, Komeito, apparently wants to avoid upsetting public sentiment ahead of a triennial election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the nation's parliament, in summer next year. Jiji Press