Toyota Motor Corp. retained its status as top earner of taxable income for the second year in a row in fiscal 2000, according to rankings of the top 50 corporate earners released Thursday by the national taxation authority.

Toyota topped the rankings with taxable income of 679.15 billion yen, up 40.6 percent from the previous year. It is the 20th time that Japan's largest automaker has retained the top spot since the agency began compiling the rankings in 1952.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. was second with 370.34 billion yen, up 4.6 percent and rising from fourth place the previous year. It was followed by Nippon Life Insurance Co. at 290.39 billion yen, down 19.5 percent and in the same spot as the previous year.

NTT DoCoMo Inc. grabbed the fourth spot with 282.17 billion yen, up 10.5 percent and rising from fifth place the previous year.

NTT Corp. made a comeback to the top 50 list, taking the fifth slot with 237.7 billion yen, a 625.1 percent surge as a result of one-off gains from the sale of a U.S. subsidiary.

The combined taxable income of the nation's top 50 earners rose 6.6 percent to 7.08 trillion yen for the third straight annual gain, the authority said.

The rankings are based on taxable income filed by 3,388 major companies with capitalization of at least 3 billion yen that closed their books in the year to March 31.

Combined taxable income of all of the companies covered totaled 18.98 trillion yen, up 13 percent for the second straight annual increase.

By industry, the number of financial firms in the top 50 fell from 14 to 11, reflecting the bad-loan woes that have crippled the banking sector.

Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi -- dropping nine places to 11th with 167.68 billion yen -- and Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank -- down 12 spots to 38th with 89.16 billion yen -- were the only banks on the top 50 list.

Eight electric machinery companies appeared on the top 50 list, up from four the previous year, on first-half profits from the IT boom in the first half of fiscal 2000.