A Japanese real estate tycoon, Genshiro Kawamoto, has been arrested for evading corporate tax payments worth $8.5 million on commercial buildings that he owns in Japan. The 81-year-old businessman was also accused of hiding revenue worth $31 million (2.9 billion yen) in his rental earnings for three years ending December 2011.
According to Business Journal, Kawamoto might have used the money to buy residential properties in the Kahala neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii. Apparently, he was using all the unpaid tax money to purchase sculptures for the art museum that he is developing in one of his residential digs.
He has purchased around 27 properties in the region of Kahala. Residents of the area expressed their pleasure at his arrest.
"I think it's fantastic. Long overdue. I think that Mr. Kawamoto has been up to a lot of illegal activities. It's incredible. Probably there's a direct tie to the (Kahala) properties themselves. I feel like finally we might get some justice here," Mark Blackburn, a resident of the area, said to Hawaii News Now.
Kawamoto was the founder of real estate firm, "Marugen Building". Federal authorities also suspect that Kawamoto has hidden income earned from his now dissolved leasing firm, "Tokyo Shoji".
Kawamoto had often claimed that he didn't care about taxes and that only fools paid them. A source close to Kawamoto confirmed that Kawamoto didn't believe in paying taxes, reports The Daily Yomiuri.
More recently, Kawamoto declared that he planned to spend the coming three months supervising and focusing on completing the Kahala Gardens. Now that he has been arrested, uncertainty looms on the project, reports KITV News.
Check out an interesting video on the planned Kahala Estate Art Museum below:
