Compliance

We also urge business partners to comply with the KDDI Group Sustainable and Responsible Procurement Guidelines, which defines rules for prohibition of corruption, bribery, abuse of power and giving or receiving illicit funds.

As of the end of March 2023, there are 279 au Style stores (including directly managed stores) nationwide, 1,780 au Shops nationwide, and 238 UQ Spot stores nationwide, all of which specialize in KDDI products and services. These shops including au Style and au/UQ mobile Shops are the place where customers actually see and experience au/UQ mobile products and services. KDDI products and services are also widely available at Toyota car dealers and electronics retail stores in addition to au Style and au Shops.

We at KDDI consider that improving the service quality of au Style, au Shops and UQ Spot―as specialty stores for a telecommunications operator―and other au distributors to be particularly important to maximizing positive customer experiences. We continue to support them in various ways to further improve skills of the staff.

Since training staff is essential to improving the service quality of all distributors, we help the staff learn effectively through e-learning in which they can gain basic operational knowledge and new product information and online sales training. We have also implemented a qualification system to evaluate staff skills and store management capabilities and encourage their sales efforts to achieve high customer satisfaction by awarding the titles "Advisor," "Master," "Lifestyle Consultant (au Style only)" and "Expert." We train and certify "X Supervisors," who promote human resource development management at distributors. Moreover, we hold the "CX AWARD," an annual contest to present various initiatives at au Style, au Shops and UQ Spot, and share praise and good practices.

We also conduct periodic audits of au Style, au stores, and UQ Spot to check the status of implementation of operational rules for information security and legal compliance. By providing feedback based on the audit results, we are working to raise security and compliance awareness among staff handling personal information and improve the accuracy of our operations.

We at KDDI support our distributors in their various sales support activities. This includes our support when they open or move to new locations, in organizing staff for store operations, and in staff capacity building through various in-store staff training and qualification exams.

In its agreement with distributors, KDDI requires them to have no involvement in anti-social forces, engage in fair trade practices and conduct proper business activities.

We at KDDI Group pursue the satisfaction and benefits of our customers while fulfilling our social responsibilities not only by complying with international rules and applicable tax laws and regulations in all operating countries and regions, but also by complying with and following the spirit of the law and paying tax appropriately to engage in tax fairness, and thereby strive to maximize corporate value.
In fiscal 2024, we paid 338,517 million yen of corporate income tax, which accounts for 30.6% of gross income. KDDI Group submits the Securities Report after undergoing accounting audits by external accounting auditors and obtaining approval of the CFO (Senior Managing Executive Officer, Director /CFO Executive Director, Corporate Sector) and the President.

The KDDI Group Tax Management Regulations have been established to ensure that the KDDI Group steadily implements the Basic Tax Policy in its actual business activities. KDDI Group companies are required to comply with the regulations. The regulations were established by KDDI and are overseen by the Chief Financial Officer.
Practical operations are transferred to KDDI's tax division, which reports to the CFO and the necessary meetings bodies when it becomes aware of significant events or risks related to the KDDI Group's tax affairs.

As KDDI Group businesses become increasingly multinational and have more international transactions, our top management, including the President, is working to develop and promote a tax strategy that properly recognizes international tax risks and regards such risk as an important issue that is directly linked to management, while utilizing external specialists to have a deeper understanding of the latest tax updates. In addition, the head office is engaged in education for employees across the world and receives tax practice support from external specialists. With these initiatives, we strive to maintain and improve tax governance. Also, with regard to the tax returns it prepares, KDDI has them reviewed by an external tax accountant corporation and obtains approval of the CFO before submitting them to the tax authorities.

To maintain the transparency of tax affairs, we prepare and submit an annual report on our activities by country in accordance with tax laws in Japan. We also work to build trust relationship with tax authorities in each country by conducting timely and appropriate disclosure of tax-related information, such as a business summary report on the overall status of the Group's activities in line with the relevant laws, regulations and disclosure standards of each country and region in which we operate. With these initiatives and prior inquiries as required, we strive to reduce tax risks.

In accordance with OECD's Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), we are committed to ensuring proper tax payment in all operating countries including Japan, by aligning tax payments with the location of our economic activity and value creation, in line with the revision of tax regulations to tackle BEPS.
In particular, we handle transfer pricing taxation and anti-tax haven taxation, which are critical international taxation issues.