Get a tax break plus lobster & beef in Japan

Hirado, Japan

TAX breaks come in many forms. Charitable gifts. Healthcare expenses. Mortgage interest payments. In this small fishing village, they come in a cooler. It is part of the great tax giveaway happening across Japan. Taxpayers who donate money to Hirado get a nice deduction and a shipment of slipper lobsters, spiral-shelled molluscs and oysters.

Don't like seafood? Hirado has hundreds of other thank-you gifts, like a monthly vegetable delivery, a fold-up electric bike or a wedding photo shoot with formal wear and hotel stay included.

Donors - 36,000 in one year - now outnumber residents. "I think of them as neo-citizens," said Hirado's mayor, Naruhiko Kuroda.

Exploiting a quirk in the country's tax system, scores of towns with dwindling populations are supplementing revenue by courting outside donors. The result is a sort of adopt-a-forest programme for rural communities - albeit one where the fores…