A monk-cum-politician at one of Japan's most influential Buddhist sects faces tax evasion charges Thursday after hiding some 330 million yen in income, tax authorities said.
Investigating documents were sent to the Kofu District Public Prosecutors Office, accusing Yuko Nakazato, a senior monk at the Nichiren sect's Minobusan Kuonji temple in Minobu, Yamanashi Prefecture, of evading some 120 million yen in taxes from 1998 to 2000.
Nakazato, who is also a member of the Minobu Municipal Assembly, reportedly took advantage of his position as head of a monastery in the Kuonji headquarters to raise money.
After he was appointed as head of the Shichimenzan Keishinin monastery in 1998, he started pocketing part of the offerings as well as accommodation charges levied from lay followers, sources said.
The 58-year-old monk also organized a number of events to boost the monastery's income while drastically cutting down expenditures to misappropriate the surplus.
Nakazato never declared some 330 million yen he misappropriated from the Keishinin and deposited the money into bank accounts held under his own and his family's names. He also allegedly used some of the money to operate a private loan business.
The Tokyo taxation bureau has been probing the financial affairs of Kuonji and Keishinin since last year and raided the temples last May. Offerings to a religious organization are nontaxable, but authorities are confident that the money personally spent by Nakazato is taxable.
Nichiren sect officials distanced themselves from Nakazato.
"It is true that we were raided by taxmen but the matter concerns only an individual. The temple has nothing to do with this," a Kuonji spokesman said.
A Keishinin representative agreed. "We have a different head now, so we don't know what happened under him."
Nakazato, a native of Minobu, is also the head priest of the town's Kyoenbo temple, a position he inherited from his father. He was first elected to the Minobu assembly in 1987 and is currently serving his fourth term. (Compiled from the Mainichi and wire reports, March 28, 2002)