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)

When did the Beatles begin making music with political messages? There are various theories, but one is that it started with the song “Taxman,” which was the opening track on “Revolver,” their seventh album released in 1966.

Paul McCartney’s lively bass line is said to have made the song memorable.

The Fab Four were apparently angered when the Labor government of Harold Wilson in the 1960s raised the tax rates for Britain’s highest earners to a whopping 95 percent.

Making fun of an imaginary tax official, the lyrics go: “Should 5 percent appear too small/ Be thankful I don’t take it all/ ’Cause I’m the taxman/ Yeah, I’m the taxman.”

Japanese taxpayers must be irate now, too, but for quite different reasons.

Kenji Kanda, who held the post of senior vice finance minister that made him one of the de-facto top taxmen in Japan, was found to have failed to pay property taxes and faced foreclosure on four occasions.

But Kanda held on to his post as if he’d done nothing wrong, even after acknowledging these facts on Nov. 9.

He finally resigned on Nov. 13.

All of this took place when the Diet was deliberating on tax issues that included Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s income tax cut policy and raising taxes to fund a massive increase in the nation’s defense budget.

Kanda could not have been more unsuited for the exalted position. Actually, how the prime minister could have appointed him in the first place is beyond comprehension.

So, too, is the fact that nobody has come forward, to this day, to explain what took so long for Kanda to resign.

I am sick and tired now of hearing the chief Cabinet secretary repeat like a broken record, “It is for Kanda to live up to his own accountability.”

And the prime minister says he feels “the heavy responsibility of having appointed (Kanda) to the job,” but that’s just words. I imagine he has no intention--again--to take any responsibility.

The Kishida administration is exceedingly tone-deaf to the sensitive issue of taxation. Why are we dutifully paying taxes, and for what?

The Beatles gave us these mordantly cynical lines: “Don’t ask me what I want it for/ (Ah, ah, Mr. Wilson)/ If you don’t want to pay some more/ (Ah, ah, Mr. Heath)/ ’Cause I’m the taxman/ Yeah, I’m the taxman.”

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 14

* * *

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.