The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau suspects a man helping a U.S. company negotiate contracts for its cell-phone patents with Japanese makers hid more than 1 billion yen in income and evaded 400 million yen in taxes from 2001 to 2004, sources said Wednesday.
The tax bureau has filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors against Ichiro Nakagawa, 66, who has acted as a de facto agent in Japan for the U.S. firm InterDigital Communications Corp., they said.
InterDigital Communications, based in King of Prussia, Pa., entrusted Nakagawa to negotiate the licensing fees and periods of use for its patents with companies including NEC Corp. and Toshiba Corp., the sources said.
He is believed to have received financial rewards from the U.S. company when he obtained contracts, but he is suspected of not declaring the income from 2001 to 2003 and underreporting it in 2004, they said.