Photo/Illutration Kenji Kanda, the senior vice finance minister, speaks with reporters on Nov. 8 during a break in the Lower House Financial Affairs Committee session. (Takeshi Iwashita)

Bowing to fierce criticism from the opposition parties, the senior vice finance minister tendered his resignation on Nov. 13 for failing to pay property taxes on land and a building in Nagoya. 

Kenji Kanda, 60, a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, heads a Aichi Prefecture company that failed to pay property taxes and faced foreclosure on four occasions.

According to several sources, Kanda submitted his resignation to Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki, saying he did not want to be the cause of any delay in Diet deliberations.

On Nov. 9, Kanda admitted that an online magazine report about his failure to pay the taxes on time was accurate, but he said then he did not intend to resign.

But Yoshitaka Saito, the chairman of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s Upper House caucus Diet Affairs Committee, said, “It has been pointed out that the senior vice finance minister, who is responsible for tax collection, has himself failed to pay taxes on time. He would naturally have to resign.”

Saito added that it would be difficult to seriously engage in Diet deliberations on legislation with such a senior vice minister.

Kanda is the third senior official to resign after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his Cabinet and other high posts in September.

Taro Yamada stepped down as parliamentary secretary in the education ministry after admitting to having an affair, while Mito Kakizawa resigned as senior vice justice minister for proposing to a candidate in a Tokyo ward mayoral election that she use paid internet advertising in campaigning, which is illegal.

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