日学者建议对帅哥征税 以提高出生率

As part of the end of year windup, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper has created a Facebook page where readers can discuss solutions to various issues facing Japan. The current topic of debate is the declining birthrate.

Takuro Morinaga, an economic analyst, weighed in with this controversial proposal: “If we levied a ‘handsome tax‘ on good-looking guys, that would serve to correct a little bit of the unfairness in dating, making it easier for homely guys to find a partner and the number of marriages would increase.”

I bet the ladies at the local tax office are all for it.

Morinaga goes on to say, “There’s a lot of discussion about income disparity, but no one is talking about attractiveness disparity. Good-looking guys get an insane amount of women. At one time, some of them are dating over a 100 women. The result is that women are converging around one type of guy.”

He goes on to point out the prevalence of the “lady-killer” in popular culture as evidence that good-looking guys do better with the fairer sex.

In matters of love, he believes there are three components: physical attraction, money, and communication, the most important of these currently being physical attraction. “No matter how many singles’ events a homely man goes to, all the attention ends up on the good-looking guys. Since we cannot change how people look, a redistribution must be made in the money component to even the playing field.”

Morinaga suggests doubling the income tax on good-looking guys while reducing the tax rate for homely guys by 10-20 percent. Currently, the highest rate of income tax in Japan is 40 percent, so this would mean high-earning, good-looking fellows are in for an 80 percent income tax rate. Ouch.

The real reason for the declining birthrate, according to this radical saviour, is the rise in the number of unmarried people, so he feels that increasing the number of marriages should be the most urgent objective. Measures that make it easier for people to have and raise children – such as increasing maternity and paternity leave – are aimed at people who already have kids, and Morinaga doesn’t think they will do anything to raise the birthrate

作为年终盘点的一部分，日本《朝日资讯》日前开通了一个Facebook页面，让读者能在上面讨论日本面临的各种问题的解决方法。当前讨论的话题是不断下降的出生率。

一位名叫森永拓郎的经济分析师在讨论中提出了这一颇具争议性的提议：“如果我们对帅哥征收‘英俊税’，就能纠正约会中的那点不公平，从而让其貌不扬的男子能够更容易找到对象，结婚人数也会上升。”

我打赌地方税务局的女士们会完全赞成这个提议。

森永还说：“关于收入差距的讨论很多，但是没人谈论吸引力差距。长得帅的男人得到的女人多得几近疯狂。过去一些帅哥甚至和100多个女人约会。结果是女人围着同一种类型的男人转。”

他还指出流行文化中盛行的“大众情人”就是帅哥更得女士青睐的证据。

他认为，爱情有三个组成部分：身体吸引力、金钱和交流，这三者中目前最重要的是身体吸引力。“不管一个长相平凡的男子参加多少单身活动，所有的目光最后都聚集在帅哥身上。既然我们不能改变人们的长相，那么在金钱环节就必须进行重新分配，以保持竞争环境的公平。”

森永建议，将对帅哥征收的个人所得税加倍，同时把向相貌平凡的男子征的税降低10%到20%。当前，日本个人所得税的最高税率为40%，这将意味着收入高又长得帅的男子要缴纳的个人所得税税率将达到80%。哎哟！

这位激进的救星称，出生率下降的真正原因是未婚人士数量的增加，所以他认为增加婚姻数量应该是最紧迫的目标。让人们更容易生养小孩的措施——例如增加产假和陪产假——针对的是已经有小孩的人群，森永认为这些措施对提高出生率毫无用处。