Overseas Bank Accounts

The headquarters building of Korea's National Tax Service.
The headquarters building of Korea's National Tax Service.

 

A total of 774 individuals and corporations owned 7,905 banking accounts with deposits of at least one billion won each outside of Korea last year. The combined account balance was 24.3 trillion won (US$23.5 billion).

The National Tax Service announced the result of the voluntary report on August 5. The subjects were those who have ever owned an overseas bank account of at least one billion won in 2013. Compared to the previous year, the number and amount increased 14.2 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively. According to the agency, the increase is because of the expansion of the assets subject to report from bank and securities accounts to all types of financial accounts including funds, bonds, derivatives and insurance products.

“We have a list of 50 entities that are suspected to not have filed the report,” it explained, continuing, “We will launch an in-depth investigation and then take measures such as criminal prosecution if necessary.”

Out of the 774 reported entities, 389 are private individuals, and they owned 2.7 trillion won (US$2.6 billion) in 1,574 accounts. The average balance reported decreased by approximately one billion to seven billion won (US$1-7 million). The other 385 legal entities were corporate bodies with 21.6 trillion won (US$20.9 billion) in 6,331 accounts. The average per corporate body increased by 800 million won (US$773,000) from a year earlier to 56 billion won (US$54.2 million).

Of the individuals, 41.4 percent reported a balance of up to 2 billion won (US$1.9 million) each, while 28.8 percent of the individuals reported more than 5 billion won (US$4.8 million). Of the corporations, 49.6 percent reported a balance of over 5 billion won (US$4.8 million). Out of the total accounts, 53.9 percent were savings accounts, while 31.5 percent were securities and 13.1 percent were bonds, derivatives, insurance and funds.

A total of 924 accounts with a combined balance of 3 trillion won (US$2.9 billion) were reported to be in 17 countries that have been designated as tax havens by the OECD. The figures had been 13 countries, 789 accounts, and 2.5 trillion won in 2012.

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