City to sell off cars of tax evaders

The Seoul Metropolitan Government will sell off cars that were confiscated from habitual tax delinquents.

The city government said yesterday that they will put 66 cars up for auction online from Friday to August 13.

The municipal government decided to sell off the cars as the delinquents have not made their tax payments.

Luxury imported cars such as BMW 7 Series, Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz and domestic cars such as Hyundai Equus, Sonata, Avante and Ssangyong Chairman are included. The owners of these vehicles failed to pay about a total of 9.01 billion won ($7.99 million) in taxes, according to the city government.

Among the cars, the 2007 BMW 750i was evaluated the most expensive at 23 million won.

The owner of the BMW didn’t pay 36.4 million won in taxes. The 2008 Cadillac STS sedan was valued at 18 million won, 2004 Mercedes Benz ML400 CDI was valued at 11 million won and the 2007 Hyundai Equus was valued at 12 million won.

The municipal government said this is a good opportunity for people who are considering purchasing pre-owned cars because the price is lower than the normal used car market price and also does not require buyers to pay commissions to dealers.

The normal market price for a used 2007 BMW 750i, for instance, is about 40 million won.

The city government said that all the cars were owned by the tax delinquents until they were confiscated.

The government says that there is no price gauging or risk of purchasing poor quality cars as in the case of some used car dealers who try to fool buyers by manipulating odometers or covering up damage.

The city government said that people interested in purchasing the cars can view them on www.automart.co.kr, the official Web site of Automart, the cooperative firm of the city government.

For the BMW 750i model, for instance, inspection details reading “remote control for the audio system is poor and incompletion of the regular inspection is highly suspected,” can be found.

The city government has made up 5.9 billion won in unpaid taxes by selling 2,400 cars that were owned by tax delinquents last year.

“We will keep confiscating cars that are owned by habitual tax delinquents in the second half of the year,” Kwon Hae-yoon, the chief of the 38 Tax Collection Team of the city government said.

By Kwon Sang-soo [sakwon80@joongang.co.kr]