EXCLUSIVE: Japan Tax Official Faces Dismissal over Fraud, Tax Evasion

Tokyo, Aug. 7 (Jiji Press)–Japanese tax authorities on Friday decided to dismiss an official in his 20s for defrauding a wealthy elderly woman he was auditing of a large amount of cash and evading roughly 100 million yen in taxes on gambling winnings obtained with the stolen money, Jiji Press learned. The Kantoshinetsu Regional Taxation Bureau slapped the official at a tax office in Ibaraki Prefecture, eastern Japan, with the disciplinary dismissal. Authorities referred the official to prosecutors on suspicion of fraud and filed a criminal complaint for violating the income tax law. According to informed sources, the official is suspected of defrauding the woman of a total of about 150 million yen over several years while he was working at a tax office in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo. Additionally, the official allegedly failed to report in time income totaling about 300 million yen, including winnings from gambling on boat races, during the three years through 2025, resulting in tax evasion of at least about 100 million yen. The official, who belonged to a division in charge of individual taxation, became close to the woman through the tax investigation. He received several hundred thousand yen every time he visited her home and later began receiving several million yen. He used the money on entertainment and to buy betting tickets for boat races. The sources said the official also borrowed money from colleagues to bet on boat races. When a supervisor warned him, the official said that he had quit gambling and that he had no debt. However, an investigation into him was launched after multiple reports that he continued to engage in problematic activities. The incident was part of a series of scandals involving tax officials, including a leak of taxpayer information and a case of an official engaging in sugar daddy dating. “Unprecedented cases of malicious scandals are occurring one after another,” a senior tax official said. “The situation is eroding trust in tax administration.” According to the National Personnel Authority, 37 tax officials received disciplinary action in 2025, and this year, 20 people had been disciplined as of March. In May, a female official in her 20s at a tax office in Saitama was given a pay cut for receiving a total of roughly 2.3 million yen while working at a call-girl business and going on sugar daddy dates with about 30 people she met through social media. She said that she wanted to raise money in order to support a little-known idol, and she resigned from her job. Meanwhile, it emerged in April that an examiner in his 30s at the Osaka Regional Taxation Bureau leaked 259 pieces of information, including businesses’ and individuals’ names, via the Line messaging app after a man posing as a police officer in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, told him by phone that he was under investigation. Taxpayers whose information was leaked said that they had since received phone calls believed to be from scammers. The examiner resigned after being suspended. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]