Top court rules pet funerals are taxable business+

TOKYO, Sept. 12 Kyodo - The Supreme Court ruled Friday that funerals for pets conducted by a Buddhist temple should be subject to taxation, dismissing the temple's appeal that pet funerals are nontaxable religious activities.

Upholding a Nagoya High Court ruling in 2006 on the suit filed by Jimyoin
Temple in Aichi Prefecture, Osamu Tsuno, presiding justice at the top court's
second petty bench, ruled that the funerals are a profit-making business that
compete with other agents, not a charity.
The temple had called for the annulment of taxation on the rites, which were
worth some 6.7 million yen over a five-year period through March 2001.
It was the first top court's ruling on whether pet funerals by a religious
institution are taxable.
While the temple argued that cremation and memorial services are nontaxable
religious activities, local tax authorities regard the temple's pet funerals --
which include cremation, sutra chanting and the sale of mortuary tablets -- as
a taxable business.
The high court upheld a 2005 Nagoya District Court ruling against the temple,
which said Jimyoin has a pricing system similar to those of private operators
of pet funerals and that its cremation and sutra chanting services should be
considered as a contracting business and storing of pets' remains warehouse
business.