Akahata, October 29, 2010

The Japanese Communist Party is demanding that the ongoing forcible collection of back taxes from small-and midsized companies and small traders be reassessed, citing a case in which a petty trader killed himself in order to pay the back taxes with the use of mutual aid insurance money.

Daimon Mikishi, JCP Upper House member, in a House of Councilors financial affairs committee meeting on October 28 pointed out that even in violation of laws, the tax agency sometime seize receivables that their customers still have. He cited the case of a petty trader in Chiba Prefecture who committed suicide after the tax office seized his bank deposits and forced him to pay the back tax by the year’s end. Quoting his suicide note saying that the tax should be paid from his death benefit, Daimon said that the enforcement of tax payments should never cause anyone’s death.

The National Tax Administration Agency vice director replied that the agency will instruct tax offices to be more careful.

Okuda Utako, who runs an eatery in Saitama Prefecture, said, “The task of the government is to rescue small and petty traders from the plight of the business depression, not to drive them into business closures or suicides because of back taxes. The Japanese economy will collapse unless small-and midsized enterprises, accounting for 70-80 percent of the economy, are protected.”
-Akahata, October 29, 2010