EXILE management denies tax evasion

[KarenPang]

Popular group EXILE made headlines earlier this week, but not in a positive way. LDH, the management agency run by EXILE leader HIRO, is in trouble with the tax bureau for failing to report hundreds of millions of yen in revenue.

Sources say that a tax investigation revealed that LDH failed to report approximately 300 million yen in earnings during the fiscal years of 2008 and 2009. It appears that the case could be treated as tax evasion, in which case there would be additional fines imposed.

LDH has acknowledged that there was a discrepancy in the accounting, but they have already filed a revised tax return. The company insists that the misreporting was unintentional.

LDH was founded in September 2003. The agency currently manages dozens of celebrities, with EXILE being the biggest, as they are one of the highest-selling artists in Japan. According to Oricon, their total sales from singles, albums, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs was close to 13 billion yen in 2009 and more than 19 billion yen in 2008.

http://www.tokyograph.com/news/id-5947

300 million yen is about US$3.2 million +