alt.hn

5/11/2026 at 8:59:17 PM

Cash register makers seek 1% food tax rate, citing extra time needed for 0% rate

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/04/29/japan/politics/japan-food-tax-cut-challenges/

by PaulHoule

5/11/2026 at 11:13:00 PM

We all wonder how bad all the future, AI-written code will be, yet we forget how bad majority of the existing software actually already is.

by cromka

5/12/2026 at 12:30:22 AM

Which was naturally used to train the models.

by Semiapies

5/12/2026 at 1:45:51 AM

I think the government should make the new 0% tax rate optional. Stores can either continue to collect 8% or drop the rate to 0%.

I think that might help motivate these companies to move things a long a lot quicker. They might even find it doesn’t take 1 year after all.

by jeeeb

5/11/2026 at 9:04:05 PM

> Whereas a zero-percent tax rate would require building new systems from scratch, a tax rate cut to 1% would only need three to six months for cash register system revisions, according to an industry source.

Wat.

by JumpCrisscross

5/11/2026 at 9:50:19 PM

I'm with you. Why is 0% not valid?

by 1970-01-01

5/11/2026 at 10:58:22 PM

> Why is 0% not valid?

The only things I can think of is these are analog registers or otherwise have hard coded dividing by the sales-tax number.

by JumpCrisscross

5/11/2026 at 10:55:10 PM

0% is valid, but only for the koolaid.

by metalman

5/11/2026 at 9:26:41 PM

[flagged]

by deanmen

5/12/2026 at 8:40:09 AM

[dead]

by aaron695

5/11/2026 at 11:46:07 PM

A year to not include a line item based off of a simple condition is an incredible claim.

by nitwit005

5/12/2026 at 1:45:06 AM

I’m calling horseshit. Every job I worked in the past that required handling a register was a Japanese cash register where we could just not charge tax, and which had multiple options depending on what kind of tax it was (drive-thrus for example have a different rate, I never had to deal with that personally but I came across it in the manual when we were setting up a new one). It was an extra key to charge tax.

This shit isn’t lost technology, and while I understand why The Japan Times might be reluctant to name names, given that they’re not naming which manufacturer or manufacturers it is that is crying about how this is “too hard”, I just don’t believe them.

by SllX