Japan's Public Finances — What the Government Takes In, Spends and Owes

General Account — Budget and Settlement

The central government's main account by fiscal year. 予算額 is what the Diet voted, initial budget plus every supplementary; 決算額 is what was collected and spent. Japan under-spends its budget in most years, so the two are carried separately and never netted. The settlement runs about two years behind the budget: a year's accounts close roughly twenty months after it starts.

Revenue by Head

Where the general account's money comes from. Bond issuance (公債金) is booked as revenue in Japan's general account, which is why headline "revenue" and the tax take differ by tens of trillions of yen. Borrowing is its own line here and is never merged with tax.

National Tax Receipts — Budget vs Outturn

Every national tax, what the supplementary budget assumed and what was actually collected. The outturn has beaten the budget in every year published. The general account's taxes are listed first; the reference block below them is collected nationally but funds local government or a special account, and the two blocks are never summed except by the Ministry's own 総計.

Spending by Policy Purpose

The Ministry's own major-expense classification. Social security, debt service and the local allocation tax grant together take about three-quarters of the account before anything discretionary is paid. The five measures are different numbers and are never merged: what was voted in March, what the supplementaries changed, what was finally available after carry-overs, and what was actually spent.

Spending by Ministry

The same account split by the body that spends it. Every ministry is published under the name it had, so the 2001 reorganisation reads as series ending and series beginning — 大蔵省 and 財務省 are two bodies, not one renamed.

Central Government Debt Outstanding

Everything the central government owes at the end of each quarter: government bonds split into general bonds and the FILP bonds, borrowings, and the financing bills that cover day-to-day cash. Stocks at quarter end, dated to the first day of the closing month.

General Government — GFS Basis

The whole of government on the IMF's Government Finance Statistics classification — central government, local government and the social security funds, with the transfers between them netted out. This is the basis international comparisons use, and the only one on which Japan's deficit means anything: the general account above is one legal account of one tier of government.

Prefecture Finances

The settled accounts of all 47 prefectures. 実質収支 (the real balance) takes out the money already committed to next year's carried-over projects, and it is the figure the fiscal-health rules key off — not the raw difference between revenue and expenditure.