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 “l(fā)ady-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.

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(Agencies)