CEA head Hubbard recommends low progressive tax rates.

Japan Weekly Monitor, September, 2002

TOKYO, Sept. 12 Kyodo

Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), said Thursday that Japan should consider keeping low the progressive tax rates, or the tax rates in proportion to income, as part of its tax reforms.

''The bottom line in thinking about tax reform debate is to focus on principles and one of the principles is to keep marginal tax rates low,'' Hubbard said at a forum sponsored by the Cabinet Office.

The visiting economic adviser was speaking at the forum of experts and academics on Japan's taxation system aiming to learn lessons from past tax system reforms in the United States.

In the U.S., the marginal tax rate refers to the amount of tax paid on each additional dollar of income....