KYOTO -- A recent ruling handed down by the Yokohama District Court on a tax evasion case details for the first time the methods employed by major power companies to circumvent national land laws and stymie local opposition to nuclear power plants.
On Dec. 6, Yoshinori Yabe, a 58-year-old brain surgeon in Ebina, Kanagawa Prefecture, was found guilty of evading some 130 million yen in taxes he should have paid for money received in a land transaction on a 100,000-sq.-meter plot of land in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture.
The land had been designated as the site for a Kansai Electric Power Co. nuclear reactor, which was also to supply power to Chubu Electric Power Co. and Hokuriku Electric Power Co.