IBM Japan fined for misstating income

IBM Corp's Japanese subsidiary has been fined in approximately JPY 1.5bn ($12.1m) and forced to pay taxes relating to JPY 3bn ($24.3m) in revenue that was hidden by the company over three years, according to Japanese reports.

A spokesperson for the Tokyo-based subsidiary has confirmed that IBM Japan has paid back taxes for the discrepancies, but denied that the company was trying to avoid paying taxes.

On Thursday, the Kyodo News service reported that IBM Japan had been asked to pay the JPY 1.5bn penalty and additional taxes after it was found that the company had hidden JPY 1.7bn ($13.8m) in income and misreported JPY 1.3bn ($10.4m) due to accounting errors.

The errors are believed to focus on how IBM was reporting expenses from multi-year projects, but is also reported to have involved the alteration of employee work records and padding personnel costs, resulting in a reduction of the company's profits.

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