National Tax Agency Classifies Dieting as 'Asset Concealment': Gym Users Face Mass Tax Evasion Raids

“Freeze! Put down that barbell! Calorie burning carries no suspended sentence!”

With these shouts, the National Tax Agency’s special unit “MARUSA (Fat Investigation Division)” stormed into a luxury fitness club in Minato Ward. On January 5th, citizens who had been sweating to shed their New Year’s holiday weight were detained one after another. A man running at over 10 km/h on the treadmill was apprehended for “excessive asset incineration” in flagrante delicto, while yoga class participants were questioned on suspicion of “fraudulent manipulation of basal metabolism through breathing techniques.” At the scene, dumbbells and balance balls were piled high as confiscated “tax evasion tools.”

This unprecedented crackdown is based on the “Revised Bioenergy Conservation Act” that came into effect on January 1st of this year. In response to recent energy price surges, the government redefined “citizens’ subcutaneous and visceral fat as strategic national reserve assets that can be converted to biofuel in emergencies.” Consequently, intentionally losing weight is now interpreted as “unauthorized disposal of shared national property”—in other words, asset concealment and tax evasion.

According to the National Tax Agency’s announcement, BMI (Body Mass Index) has been reinterpreted as “Base Money Index,” with higher values earning greater social credibility as high-income taxpayers. Conversely, activities that raise basal metabolism are considered “shadow asset incineration,” sweating in saunas constitutes “off-book asset outflow (window dressing),” and possession of fat-cutting supplements is treated as “purchase of tax avoidance products,” subject to heavy additional taxes. Particularly egregious are personal training services like “RIZAP,” which are now under strict surveillance comparable to anti-organized crime laws as “systematic tax evasion guidance.”

A male gym member (34) who was detained tearfully stated, “I was just exercising because my health checkup flagged me for metabolic syndrome, but in the interrogation room, they threatened not to let me go until I finished a whole pork cutlet bowl.”

Meanwhile, at a press conference, National Tax Agency Commissioner Abura Onigawara emphasized that inactivity is patriotism: “It is absolutely outrageous to burn precious national energy for personal aesthetic preferences. Citizens should fulfill their tax obligations by sitting in kotatsu, eating rice cakes, and lounging around.”

In the streets, joggers are already being pointed at as “traitors to the nation,” and “fake obesity”—where people walk around with padding stuffed in their bellies to avoid police questioning—has begun to proliferate. Now that the boundary between “health” and “tax evasion” has dissolved, whose body is it anyway? The only certainty is that this New Year, the most law-abiding act in Japan was gaining weight back through “sleeping through the holidays.”

Stakeholder Comments

• Abura Onigawara (National Tax Agency Commissioner): “One kilogram of fat equals one gram of pure gold. Those who burn it without permission are traitors to the nation.”
• Personal Trainer: “We were just helping with asset formation called muscle…”
• Late-night Runner: “Police! Hide!… Phew, I almost got arrested for raising my heart rate too high.”
• Confiscated Protein: “I’m just powder. I got shaken once and now I’m an accomplice?”
• Kagami-mochi (Mirror Rice Cake): “Standing firm like me is the greatest contribution to society.”
• Fat Cell: “Finally, the times have caught up with me. I’m no longer the outcast—I’m a national reserve!”
• Ministry of Health Official: “The metabolic guidance contradicts the tax agency’s policy, but for now, we’ll thoroughly enforce the zen-like instruction to ‘stay healthy while gaining weight.’”
• Black Market Muscle Dealer: “Got some high-purity chicken breast here. Broccoli just came through the underground route too.”
• Sauna Enthusiast: “I’m not ‘achieving enlightenment’—I’m getting high on the guilt of ’evading taxes.’”
• Bathroom Scale: “Don’t step on me. That’s the best tax-saving measure.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Eat mochi and sleep / Patriotism fulfilled / Spring brings more weight
• In cold winter air / Running footsteps echo / Shadow incineration
• Tax evasion marked / By every drop of sweat / Heavy is the crime
• Dumbbells rest in cold / Iron chill like prison bars / Fitness now a sin
• Body fat burns bright / The nation’s flames of anger / Consume the guilty
• In the sauna room / What evaporates away / Is tax money
• Eat the pork cutlet / Atonement through consumption / Suspended sentence
• Waist circumference / Pinched between the fingers of / The tax collector
• Forced to stay hungry / That too is a crime against / The nation’s reserves
• First dream of New Year / Abs that ripple like the waves / A criminal act

Kanji / Chinese Characters

国税庁緊急突入 脂肪国家備蓄認定 体重減少資産隠滅 深夜走者一斉検挙 筋肉即脱税工作

Emoji

🏋️‍♂️❌🚔👮‍♂️💸📉🔥🙅‍♂️🍖🙆‍♂️🇯🇵🛋️😴🍔💰

Onomatopoeia

CRASH CRASH! (raid sounds) Blubb blubb… (the peaceful sound of fat being stored) Swoosh, dash (sound of shadow runners hiding in alleys) Sizzzzle~ (sound of assets evaporating in the sauna) CLANG! (dumbbell confiscation) Squishy squishy (the legal feeling of a belly)

SNS

• #SleepingThroughHolidaysIsTaxPayment
• Went to the gym and MARUSA showed up lmao
• My protein got confiscated… I can’t live without it
• #TaxEvadingRunner looking to connect (private account)
• Started my NTA-approved fat-gaining lifestyle
• Is it true you get additional taxes if you lose weight?
• Looking for info on underground gyms. DM me.
• My boyfriend with six-pack abs got arrested. I’ll wait for you 😢
• Today’s lunch is a large katsu curry! This puts me on the high taxpayer list!
• Apparently saunas are money laundering facilities lolol