Japan retail sales up for ninth month Apple hit with $98m in back taxes
TOKYO - Japanese retail sales rose for a ninth straight month in November, data showed on Tuesday, as the lifting of COVID-19 border controls and the government’s domestic travel subsidy helped consumer demand.
But from the previous month, sales fell from October, with price increases in daily necessities weighing on Japanese households as the nation’s core consumer inflation rate hit a fresh 40-year high, indicating price hikes were broadening.
A recovery in private consumption, which makes up more than half of Japan’s economy, is key to driving growth in the economy, which unexpectedly shrank in the third quarter.
Retail sales grew 2.6 per cent from the year earlier but short of a median forecast of 3.7 per cent. The pace of annual growth in sales, a barometer of private consumption, slowed from 4.4 per cent in October and 4.8 per cent in September.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, retail sales slipped 1.1 per cent in November from the previous month, down for the first time in five months. ■
APPLE Inc’s Japan unit is being charged 13 billion yen ($97.82 million) in additional taxes by Tokyo for bulk sales of iPhoneS and other Apple devices to foreign tourists that were incorrectly exempted from the consumption tax, Nikkei reported on Monday citing sources.
According to the newspaper, bulk purchases of iPhones by foreign shoppers were discovered at some Apple stores with at least one transaction involving an individual buying hundreds of handsets at once and the store missed taxing at least one possible reseller.
Japan allows tourists staying less than six months to buy items without paying the 10 per cent consumption tax, but the exemption does not apply to purchases for the purpose of resale.
Apple Japan is believed to have filed an amended tax return according to Nikkei. The company did not respond to a Reuters’ request for comment on the report.
The iPhone maker’s chief executive officer, Tim Cook, visited Japan earlier this month and announced that the company had invested more than $100 billion in its Japanese supply network over the last five years.
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