Japan's Olympus ordered to pay back taxes: Report
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Japanese authorities have ordered Olympus to pay about $63 million in back taxes and penalties, reports said on Wednesday, as the disgraced firm tries to recover from a loss cover-up scandal.
The liability is tied to a 15 billion yen ($188 million) advisory fee that Olympus claimed to have paid during its 2008 acquisition of British medical equipment maker Gyrus Group, the Nikkei business daily and Jiji Press reported.
The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau told the camera and medical equipment maker that it must pay about five billion yen over the undeclared fee, which was actually part of a bid to conceal losses at the firm, the reports said.
Japan's revenue collector said the Gyrus advisory fee did not qualify as a legitimate expense, the reports said.
An Olympus spokeswoman declined to comment.
Olympus was found to have used past acquisitions and outsized consultant fees to hide huge losses worth over $1.7 billion dating back to the 1990s, after its British former chief executive blew the whistle on the accounting fraud last year.
The firm initially denied the allegations but eventually admitted wrongdoing, with Olympus and three former senior executives -- including ex-president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa -- charged over their role in the scandal.
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