Only three out of every 10 corporations that filed taxes in the 2002 business year were in the black, according to a National Tax Agency survey released Monday.
It was the lowest ratio since the agency began compiling the relevant data in the 1967 business year.
Of the 2.7 million companies that reported their income to tax authorities for the business year, which ended in June, just 30.3 percent declared a profit, down 0.6 percentage point from the corresponding period of last year.
The 30.7 percent recorded in the 1999 business year was the previous low mark.
Declared income totaled 35.03 trillion yen, 1.17 trillion yen less than the previous period. Meanwhile, the total deficit reported by corporations in the red stood at 33.01 trillion yen, up 2.09 trillion yen, the agency said.
Probes into 122,000 companies revealed that 89,000 failed to report 1.56 trillion yen in undeclared income, up 0.6 percent.