Consumer loan company Takefuji Corp. hid 920 million yen in income in fiscal 2000 by claiming to have sold bad loans to a subsidiary, and did not declare other income, sources said Friday.
The company failed to declare income of 1.49 billion yen in the year, including the hidden amount, and the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau levied some 600 million yen in tax and penalties, the sources said.
Takefuji booked as a loss in its tax returns the difference between the face value of the loans and the amount it claimed to have sold to the subsidiary, they said.
The tax bureau learned during an audit that Takefuji had been commissioned by the subsidiary to handle the loan transactions and determined that the sale of the loans itself represented a tax-evasion scam, they said.
Takefuji, one of Japan's biggest loan companies, was established in 1966.
In a separate scandal, Yasuo Takei, the founder and former chairman of Takefuji, was indicted in December by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office on charges of ordering the wiretapping of a journalist's phones.
The journalist was writing articles that were critical of the company.