Wrongful Taxes Put at 2.3 Trillion Won

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Wrongful Taxes Put at 2.3 Trillion Won

The National Tax Service wrongfully levied 2.3 trillion won ($1.8 billion) on individuals and businesses from 1998 through 2000, an opposition legislator said Sunday.

Representative Lee Hahn-koo of the Grand National Party cited documents that he said came from the tax service's records of legal appeals against it.

Mr. Lee said that if the records included this year as well as the past three, the reimbursable tax would amount to 3 trillion won.

That means, he said, that between 12.6 and 16.6 percent of the 18.3 trillion won in tax levied by the government agency was wrongfully imposed.

An official at the Ministry of Finance and Economy said that the government's loss rate in tax appeals was four times higher than Japan's, which is 10.4 percent

Mr. Lee accused the government agency of abusing its taxing power. "Such abuse of tax-levying rights and inequitable tax probe practices are what made the tax investigation into media companies possible," he said.

The Grand National Party has proposed six basic tax acts that it says would rectify such practices. Mr. Lee emphasized that the basic principles for tax investigations, which are now under the directive of the government agency, should be spelled out in legislation in order to forestall voluntary selection of tax probe subjects.

He added that provisions must be made for criminal action against the Blue House or other institutions in power that order tax investigations. He said that the reasons justifying a tax probe and the selection of the subject, as well as preparatory documents proving tax evasion should be clearly stated in the notification presented prior to the probe.



by Lee Soo-ho

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