The government wants to increase the tax exemption on gifts that parents give to their children, so if your folks were inspired by the largesse of Yasuko Hatoyama to her three kids — one of whom is the prime minster and got into hot water because of that largesse — they'll be able to give you up to ¥20 million tax free, if land minister Seiji Maehara gets his way.

According to the media, however, he may not get all he wants. Maehara is in charge of keeping the housing market humming, and following the Liberal Democratic Party's lead last spring, when the former ruling party allowed tax exemptions for gifts of up to ¥6 million as long as they were spent to buy or improve residential housing, he wants to increase the exemption in the next budget.

Basically, the idea is that there is some ¥1,400 trillion not circulating in Japan, but rather just sitting in people's bank accounts or in their mattresses (or, to put in Japanese terms, in the tansu, or wardrobe). About half of this dormant money is in the possession of Japan's elderly. Normally, when these people die, the money goes to their offspring, who, in turn, just put it into their own back accounts or in their own wardrobes. Since people live quite long in Japan, their children usually are already settled with their own homes when their parents die. The LDP's scheme was to persuade these older people to give some of their money to their kids (or grandkids) earlier, while they're still alive, at a time when they are thinking of buying homes.