Yomiuri Shimbun Failed to Declare 479 Mil. Yen in Taxable Income

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Apr. 29–TOKYO — The Yomiuri Shimbun’s Tokyo head office and the Yomiuri Shimbun group failed to declare about 479 million yen in taxable income in the five years to March 31, 2006, sources familiar with case said Sunday.

The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau ordered the nation’s largest newspaper to pay some 175 million yen in back and punitive taxes, the sources said.

About 186 million yen in income was subject to the penalty tax in connection with accounting over a renewal of newspaper rotary presses owned by the daily’s Tokyo head office, the sources said.

The Yomiuri Shimbun’s Tokyo headquarters said it inadvertently posted a loss by prematurely declared that the old rotary presses it was still keeping had already been disposed of, when it was planning to replace the old rotary presses with new ones.

The daily said “an in-house communication” failure was responsible for the error. A Yomiuri Shimbun spokesman said the company will pay the taxes as the tax authorities have pointed out.

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