Back taxes slapped on Softbank for concealing 140-m.-yen income

December 3, 2017

Tokyo- The National Tax Agency has ordered Softbank Corp. to pay some 45 million yen in back taxes including fines, alleging the subsidiary of Softbank Group Corp. concealed about 140 million yen in taxable income, informed sources said Sunday.

According to Softbank and other sources, the company booked for the year that ended in March 2015 expenses to develop wireless gas meter-reading devices for its service to remote-control gas supplies, although the development, undertaken by an outside firm, had not finished fully and only some devices were delivered.

The taxation authority is believed to have concluded that Softbank did paperwork to pretend it received all devices to cheat on income tax, informed sources said.

Besides, the agency claimed that the company failed to declare a total of about 6 billion yen in income related to depreciation costs for telecommunications facilities for three years through March 2015, the sources said.

"There were perception gaps (with the agency)," a Softbank official said. "We filed revised tax returns after discussions with the agency," the official added. Jiji Press