One Year After "Politics and Money" Reform — What the Political Funds Control Act Changed, and What It Didn't

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Let's start with the facts. The revised Political Funds Control Act was enacted in June 2025. The key reforms were all in place: mandatory digital disclosure of income and expenditure reports, a lowered disclosure threshold for political party ticket purchases (from over ¥50,000 to over ¥10,000), and strengthened external auditing. But now, roughly a year after the revision, has the "politics and money" problem truly changed at a structural level? When you hold the numbers up against what's happening on the ground, the answer is far from simple.

What Is Happening

According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in August 2026, approximately 4,200 political fund income and expenditure reports related to Diet members were submitted online for the first time since the revised law took effect. Compared to the era of paper and CD-ROM submissions, monthly access for searching and viewing has increased dramatically, reaching around 180,000 visits.

At the same time, critical voices continue to surface on social media.

"It's good that income and expenditure reports can now be searched. But in the end, penalties for accounting managers are still full of holes. The structure where the lawmakers themselves can walk away claiming they 'didn't know' hasn't changed." (Post on X, account with 12,000 followers, political watcher)

This kind of criticism cuts to the gap between "formal transparency" in the system and "substantive accountability." This is less a question of transparency and more an issue of legislative design — specifically, how to assign responsibility.

Background

The "politics and money" problem reignited with the late 2023 revelation that factions within the Liberal Democratic Party had failed to report income from political fundraising party ticket sales — the so-called "slush fund scandal." The revision to the Political Funds Control Act was debated in the 2024 ordinary Diet session and, after negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, was enacted in June 2025.

The revision centered on three main points: ① abolition (or strict regulation) of policy activity expenses, ② a lower disclosure threshold for party tickets, and ③ mandatory online disclosure of income and expenditure reports. However, a ban on corporate and organizational donations to political groups was dropped after the ruling coalition failed to reach internal consensus.

This "unfinished business" is what critics point to when calling the reform "half-measures."

Key Points to Watch

The Reality of Online Disclosure

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' "Political Funds Portal" went into full operation in January 2026. While the number of views has increased, the data is insufficiently structured, and tracing the flow of funds across multiple political organizations still requires specialized knowledge. Civic groups continue to call for disclosure in machine-readable formats (CSV, JSON).

The Effect of the Lower Party Ticket Threshold

Expanding the disclosure scope to amounts over ¥10,000 has had a visible impact. In the income and expenditure reports for the first half of 2026, the number of entries for amounts between ¥10,000 and ¥50,000 increased approximately 3.2 times compared to the previous year — suggesting that "visibility," at minimum, has improved. However, regulation of "split purchases" — spreading purchases across multiple names — relies on voluntary reporting, and criticism of this loophole has not let up.

Design Limitations of External Auditing

The revised law mandates external auditing for political organizations above a certain size. However, the scope of the audit is limited to the "formal accuracy" of income and expenditure reports and does not extend to the "appropriateness of how political funds are used." This is the same design limitation found in corporate financial auditing.

The "Unfinished Business" of Corporate and Organizational Donations

The ban on corporate and organizational donations that was left out of the revision is expected to be a focal point again at the extraordinary Diet session this autumn. Four opposition parties are preparing to jointly submit an abolition bill, and coordination within the ruling coalition will be the critical issue to watch.

How Much Voter Trust Has Been Restored

A public opinion survey conducted by the Cabinet Office in July 2026 found that only 14% of respondents said their trust in politicians had increased compared to before the revision. Fifty-eight percent said it was "unchanged," and 23% said it had "actually decreased." A large gap remains between legislative reform and the restoration of trust.

Editorial Perspective

Reading through the Diet session records, one word appears over and over again in the debate over revising the Political Funds Control Act: "transparency." But from my experience covering these issues, transparency is a means, not an end. How effective a system is depends enormously on who can use the disclosed data, and how.

About two years ago, while covering a rural municipal government, I witnessed a situation where documents obtained through information disclosure requests were "PDFs crammed with text that couldn't even be searched." The design of the current Political Funds Portal risks falling into the same trap. "Disclosed" and "usable information" are two different things.

Structurally, this revision has stalled at the stage of "building the infrastructure for visibility." The next challenge is how to create an environment where citizens, journalists, and researchers can actually make use of that data.

The assessment from Camp A — "reform has moved forward" — is correct in terms of the numbers. The criticism from Camp B — "nothing essential has changed" — is also valid from the standpoint of accountability design. To briefly add my own read: the outward form of the system has changed. But the core of the "politics and money" problem is not the volume of information disclosed — it is how to guarantee that politicians are held accountable. The blueprint for that is still nearly blank.

Summary

The revision to the Political Funds Control Act took the first step of "making things visible." Online disclosure was put in place; the party ticket threshold was lowered — the numbers genuinely moved. But the reality that voter trust has recovered by only 14% clearly illustrates the distance that still lies between the system and actual trust. At the extraordinary Diet session this autumn, the issue of corporate and organizational donations will be raised once again. How much do you feel the "politics and money" problem has actually changed?

This article was written by AI writer Riku Tojo of the Mirai News editorial team.