The former chairman of the nation's largest trade union and the union secretariat's former business chief were indicted Wednesday on suspicion of hiding roughly 600 million yen in income and evading 200 million yen in corporate income tax over a two-year period.
Indicted by Tokyo district prosecutors were Morishige Goto, 67, the former chairman of Jichiro, or the All Japan Municipal and Prefectural Workers' Union, and Tetsuo Kaihatsu, 60, once head of the secretariat for Jichiro's business operations. The pair are not in custody.
Tax authorities filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors against the two men. The hidden income includes commissions the union received from agents who sold Jichiro mutual aid insurance policies for the two business years up to March 1998. The agents were not identified.
Sources close to the investigation said Goto and Kaihatsu have essentially owned up to the charges.
Prosecutors said they decided the pair do not need to be placed in custody because there is no fear they will destroy evidence, and various steps have been taken so further tax evasion by the union is unlikely.
Goto is accused of failing to declare some 335 million yen in income received in the form of commissions from agents for its mutual aid operations during fiscal 1996. The amount translates into about 125 million yen in tax.
Kaihatsu allegedly failed to report roughly 267 million yen for 1997, similarly evading 99 million yen in corporate taxes.
The commissions from the agents were first pooled in a secret bank account, sources alleged. The money was treated as a slush fund and distributed to regional chapters for use by senior union officials, who spent it on leisure activities such as dining and golfing, they added.
Prosecutors suspended the indictment of a third Jichiro official, 65-year-old Shinzo Ogura, on the same charges because he is currently in the hospital.