10 Million Won Missing from Account for 16 Years... The Culprit Revealed

Shimonoseki City in Japan Withdraws Taxes from Account of Person with Same Name
Plans to Refund About 15 Million Won Including Interest

A local government in Japan has belatedly discovered that it mistakenly withdrew taxes from the account of a person with the same name for 16 years.

According to a recent report by the Mainichi Shimbun, Shimonoseki City in Yamaguchi Prefecture revealed on March 16 that it had incorrectly withdrawn fixed asset taxes—levied on land and buildings—from an account belonging to someone with the same name for 16 years.

The total amount of taxes wrongly withdrawn reached 1,153,300 yen (10.88 million won).

Bankbook. Getty Images

According to the city, on December 14, 2009, a citizen submitted an application to change the financial institution for account transfer payment. The city’s tax payment department received the application, but the notification number field was left blank.

It appears that, during the process of searching tax information in the computer system, a city employee entered the notification number of another person with the same name. It was reported that the address was not cross-checked for a match.

This situation came to light after the affected citizen passed away at the end of December last year, and the bereaved family inquired with the city at the end of February this year. The city plans to refund approximately 1.6 million yen (about 15.1 million won), including the miswithdrawn taxes and interest, to the family.

Meanwhile, the city plans to request payment of approximately 300,000 yen (283,000 won) for the past five years—which is not subject to the statute of limitations for local taxes—from the citizen who was originally supposed to pay. The city’s loss is estimated to be about 800,000 yen (755,000 won).

However, the city has decided not to identify the employee responsible for the mistake.

An official from the city, who spoke at a press conference, stated, "We are unable to apologize directly since the person concerned was only found after their death. We will return the funds to the bereaved family as quickly as possible."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.