Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. concealed revenues of about 400 million yen over a three-year period ending in March 1999, sources close to tax authorities said Thursday.
The Tokyo-based vehicle and machinery maker hid the funds by falsifying documents regarding expenditures for plant repairs and performance bonuses to car retail units, the sources said. The 400 million yen is part of 1.4 billion yen in undeclared revenues linked to accounting irregularities in the same period for the firm.
The sources added that the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau recently imposed penalties of more than 600 million yen on Fuji.
Said a Fuji spokesman: "We have paid all taxes based on the instructions of the tax office. The company and the authorities had different views on the way in which taxes had been paid."
Meanwhile, the tax bureau ruled that the 5 million yen the company gave a former Liberal Democratic Party member as bribe money was not paid out of its account, the sources said.
Yojiro Nakajima, 41, a former Lower House member, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in July 1999 on suspicion of taking bribes from Fuji in 1996 in exchange for helping it increase its share of the development of a search-and-rescue seaplane for the Maritime Self-Defense Force.