Diary thought about "内部留保" 5/18

Today, I found an article about “内部留保”.
内部留保 means mainly retained earnings which is accumulation of company annual profit. Therefore, it will increase when the company earn profit and they don’t pay a dividend to investors. Even if the company invest in some assets (fixed assets, company stock, financial assets, and so on), retained earnings does not decrease. It decreases when the company pay a dividend to investors.

This article explained that the companies tend to preserve money without investing new business and paying salary to employee. In fact, I think Japanese employees salary is lower than other countries and it is very difficult to invest in new business. However, they are not related to the balance of retained earnings. Some people say that taxation on “内部留保” will be effective in urging company to invest or pay salary. That doesn’t make sense for me.

If government wants company to invest more or pay salary, the taxation will be different from retained earnings tax. For example, a tax benefit for the companies which pay salary more than a threshold.
It seems like government wants to find the new source of tax..