Tax authorities have found that the Japan Kennel Club failed to declare 350 million yen in taxable income in the four fiscal years through March 2004, sources said Wednesday.
The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau concluded after a tax audit that about 55 million yen was used to pay nonexecutive directors not on its payroll and that they were paid off the books, the sources said.
The organization, overseen by the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, said it paid around 90 million yen in penalty and back taxes, but denied any irregularities in accounting.
Yoshihiro Kajinami, an executive director of the club, said the organization had "differences of view" with the tax authorities in differentiating incomes generated by its public services operations from "for-profit" businesses.
The group, headed by Takemi Nagamura, a former head of the agriculture ministry's Livestock Industry Department, filed a revised tax return in accordance with instructions from the tax authorities.
The organization, established in 1949, sits at the top of 1,100 kennel clubs nationwide and has 170,000 members and 560,000 registered dogs. It runs dog shows in various parts of the country. It had 2.8 billion yen in revenue in fiscal 2003.