Sisters Who Hid £29m in Shed Face Tax Charge

They hardly fit the description of typical big-time tax dodgers: two middle-aged sisters who stashed wads of cash in cardboard boxes in a garden shed. But despite their quaint methods, the women, who were arrested yesterday, are suspected of masterminding the biggest case of inheritance tax evasion Japan has seen.

Tax officials believe Hatsue Shimizu, 64, and Yoshiko Ishii, 55, hid almost ¥6bn (£29m) inherited from their businessman father after his death in 2004, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said.

The national tax agency said the women had declared only a tiny fraction of their ¥7.5bn inheritance, avoiding taxes on the rest that would have come to ¥2.86bn.

The women are suspected of keeping most of their windfall in boxes and paper bags in a shed next to their house in Osaka, western Japan. "We have confiscated 50 cardboard boxes," the newspaper quoted a tax official as saying after inspectors raided 10 locations in the city.

Shimizu, who inherited her father's real estate and finance firm, has reportedly denied the allegations, telling investigators that she and her sister, who runs another company, had earned the cash. If found guilty the pair could be ordered to pay back taxes and fines totaling ¥4bn.

After their father's death his fortune was split among eight relatives, including Shimizu, his eldest daughter, and Ishii, his fourth daughter.

He launched his firm, Tokai Shoji, in 1954 and went on to build a business empire that included eight companies. He amassed a huge fortune and owned an 11-story building in one of Osaka's busiest districts. But in the end the sisters were victims of their father's success: tax inspectors had been watching them closely after they claimed he had left them a relatively measly ¥1.6bn.