Tax Evasion
South Korea's tax authorities uncovered Kim Hee-geun, chairman of Byucksan Engineering, hiding his offshore bank accounts with a large sum of money. The National Tax Service (NTS) posted the actual address and the amount of money, who failed to report his offshore bank accounts to the authorities, on its web site on December 8. It also imposed additional taxes on Kim.
The tax agency said Kim had overseas bank accounts whose net worth were 5.2 billion won (US$4.45 million) and 11.9 billion won (US$10.18 million) in 2013 and 2014, respectively, but he did not report them to the NTS.
An official from the NTS said, “We gave six months of the voluntary reporting period to Kim but he didn’t report it.” Under the current law, South Koreans are required to report to the tax agency every year when they have overseas bank accounts. If they fail to report their overseas accounts during the period or more than 5 billion won (US$4.28 million), the NTS report make public names of those who fail to give such information.
The NTS said, “Since we are automatically exchanging financial information with the U.S. starting from this year and will do so with 72 countries from next year, it will be harder to conceal one’s property.”