In-Depth Interview with Hitoshi Yano, a tax accountant specializing in night jobs, on the “Case Files of Money and Desire” in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho

Nightlife and Taxes

Kabukicho in Shinjuku, a town that never sleeps, is a ten-minute walk away from the hustle and bustle of the neon district, where you will find a popular tax accountant’s office.

Business hours are “by arrangement. They are open late at night or early in the morning, and specialize in “night work,” they say.

Many people in the nightlife have no knowledge of taxation. They don’t understand that paying taxes gives them credit. They make money without knowing it, and they go broke without knowing it. Knowing that there are so many people in need, I couldn’t leave them alone.”

Hitoshi Yonono, 32, is an eye-catching man with a handsome face. About 70% of his 600 customers are cabaret girls, and another 30% are hosts. What is most unusual is that Yoru himself is an active host, earning 100 million yen a year at a Kabukicho host club.

He says, “I understand the real world of the nightlife business because I have firsthand experience of the atmosphere and flow of money in the workplace, which you can’t see just from the numbers on a ledger sheet. For example, hosts are the ones who pay for the women’s food and drinks when they go out with them or after hours. There are a lot of expenses that you don’t see when you only look at the sales at the restaurant, and there is also a lot of money that disappears when you go out with your hostesses. Because I understand how such night work works, I can explain in detail what can be an expense and where the line is dangerous.

He had originally led a life unrelated to night work. He began playing baseball in elementary school and was the ace and fourth baseman at a prestigious high school in Hiroshima. I really thought I could become a pro,” Yano said.

However, his dreams were dashed and he set his sights on becoming a tax accountant.

When I was a small child, I looked at a professional baseball directory and was shocked to see that even if you earned 100 million yen, about 30 million yen would be taken away for taxes,” he said. I had a vague interest in taxes from that point on, and it was something as trivial as that that kick-started my interest in …….”

With a renewed determination, he enrolled in the Open University of Japan. After studying hard, he passed the Certified Public Tax Accountant exam at the age of 29. He started a tax accountant office in Tokyo with a woman who is a certified public accountant. Her first client was a “cheema” of a transsexual bar whose owner had run away in the night.

According to Chi-mama, it is common for the owner to run away in the night, and the problem was that a man claiming to be the manager showed up and started running the bar. The problem was that a man claiming to be the manager showed up and started running the bar. He said he was going to lower his salary because the sales were not enough, while he himself was spending a lot of money at the cabaret club as a “socializing” companion. When I checked the books, I found that even the bar mom was spending the restaurant’s money.

I explained to her the difference between expenses and entertainment expenses. I told her that even if she played with her regular customers at the cabaret club, it was a form of entertainment to thank them for their patronage, and if it contributed to sales, it would be considered an expense. Chi-Ma, who said she was “not good with numbers,” signed an advisory contract with me and entrusted me with all her tax affairs, leaving her to focus entirely on sales. We held cross-industrial exchange meetings to cultivate new customers, and after properly reimbursing expenses and receiving a tax refund, the transsexual bar, which could not even pay its rent, became profitable in less than a year.

Through word of mouth and referrals, Mr. Yano increased his clientele. At the time, applications to register for the invoice system had begun, and Mr. Yano predicted that “people in the nightlife business might have trouble with taxes.” Mr. Yano predicted that “people working at night might have trouble with taxes,” and at the age of 30 he opened his own business. He opened an office in Shinjuku.

People who work at night can’t come to a place far from …… Shinjuku,” he said with a laugh. Three-quarters of them reschedule due to hangovers and whatnot. So we thought that if we opened an office right next to Kabukicho and Shinjuku Ni-Chome, where they work, it would be easier for them to come.

Yano says that his dual role as a host was “part of the sales process.

When I was asked to handle the tax affairs of a host club, they said, ‘We don’t have enough cast members, so we need your help.

Using his connections in the nightlife business, he sold 87 million yen in his first month and became the number one host, attracting a large clientele who fell in love with his “tax stories” on TikTok, making Yano a 100 million yen player.

100 million yen tax order

In Kabukicho, where money and greed swirl, there are many hosts like Mr. Yano who earn more than 100 million yen a year but “have never filed a tax return,” he says.

One time, a host friend of mine told me, ‘I received a call from the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau. He told me that he had not filed a tax return for several years. I honestly thought, ″This is a bad ……″.

It was fortunate that he had kept five years’ worth of receipts and had consulted with the investigators before meeting with them.

“When I saw the receipts stuffed into five large garbage bags and a Boston bag, I couldn’t help but say, ‘Wow. Although there were no books of account and no tax returns, I thought, ‘If the evidence is still there, I can fight it,’ so I hurried to prepare documents for the tax inspection.”

However, as long as the taxpayer did not file a return, additional taxes and delinquent taxes were unavoidable.

The interview was like a criminal drama, starting with an interview about the company’s background. However, he was a kind investigator who was willing to chat with us and was a hit as an “investigator gacha” – the amount of tax payment finally presented to him was 40 million yen.
Just recently, a successful host in Kabukicho was subjected to a tax audit and had to pay 100 million yen in taxes. I had warned him that he was making a lot of money but had not filed a tax return and that it was ‘dangerous’ and ‘coming soon. So when I finally got a date for a meeting, I was hit a week before and ……. If only we had filed our tax return, we would have been out about 60 million yen.”

Tax audits are conducted from around June through the fall, with the national tax authorities first coming to the stores, and then the cast members are generally cited in a “sweet-potatoes” fashion.

One person he “still can’t forget” is a prostitute who consulted with him, saying she wanted to file her tax return before being imprisoned.

She told us that she had been forced to work as a part-timer in a black market and that she was going to be in prison for almost five years. When we talked to her, impressed by her willingness to pay taxes under such circumstances, she was also a victim of hardship due to her lack of tax knowledge. After explaining to her that not only costumes, but also cosmetics, nails, and esthetic treatments can be deducted as expenses, she filed a tax return and was surprised, saying, “I’ve never received so much tax back before.

Even cosmetic surgery can be expensed. If a girl who worked at a cabaret club in Ueno was hired at a high-class restaurant in Roppongi after having plastic surgery, her hourly wage would increase from 4,000 yen to 20,000 yen. The tax inspector would be able to explain that it was a noble business effort. Of course, there is a limit to the lump-sum recording of expenses, so I would advise her, including the timing of the surgery, saying, “If you want to have the surgery, you should do it in the next fiscal year. I also warn cabarets who are being bombarded with expensive gifts from their big customers that they will be subject to gift tax.

With this in mind, Yano has published a book titled “Yoru Shokushoku Tassei Keiryo-sha: Yoru Shokusyo (Night Job Tax Accountant: A True Story of Taxes and Life in Kabukicho)” (Imagica Infos.).

No one can escape taxes. Even if you go bankrupt, you are still obligated to pay taxes, and in the extreme, they are passed on to your relatives even if you die. Money can make people rich or it can kill them.

Behind the neon lights, Mr. Yano continues to deal with people working at night.

From the March 13-20, 2026 issue of FRIDAY