Japan Post to ask for return of 400,000 yen per person
Japan Post said Thursday it will ask 19,013 people to return a total of about 7.5 billion yen as it failed to charge taxes on their postal savings.
The request applies mostly to senior citizens having fixed-amount savings accounts at post offices under the “maruyu” small savings tax exemption system.
Japan Post inadvertently failed to apply taxes to savings above the tax exemption limit of 3.5 million yen. It estimates that taxes payable as a result average about 400,000 yen per person.
Japan Post will pay penalty taxes.
While postal savings accounts under the maruyu system are currently managed online, taxes were not applied to deposits made in April-November 1990 before the start of online management.
Japan Post was created April 1 this year to take over the three services of mail, postal savings and “kampo” life insurance from the governmental Postal Services Agency.
Last year the agency began checking some 440,000 accounts, including those closed over the past five years, to determine the tax irregularity.
Japan Post President Masaharu Ikuta issued a statement Thursday, apologizing to depositors for the trouble. He pledged to avoid a recurrence of similar trouble in the future, while asking for depositors’ cooperation with the refund request.
AP-NY-05-29-03 1849EDT
FDMSKYviaNewsEdge
