According to the NTS on the 27th, over the past nine months since NTS Commissioner Lim Gwang-hyeon took office in July last year, the agency recovered 33.9 billion won in five cases through collection cooperation with tax authorities in three countries. The figure accounts for most of the cumulative results since 2015 — 24 cases totaling 37.2 billion won — as the agency says international collection efforts are now producing tangible results.
The NTS uses two main channels to track overseas assets: information exchange and collection cooperation. It identifies overseas accounts and financial assets through automatic exchange of financial information with 119 countries, and obtains information on assets such as real estate through case-by-case requests to 163 countries.
When those leads confirm where assets are held, the NTS asks the relevant tax authority to carry out compulsory collection under a collection-cooperation process. Because South Korea cannot enforce seizures abroad, local tax authorities conduct the attachment and collection on its behalf.
In one case, a foreign investor living overseas who had failed to pay taxes in South Korea sold local assets and paid after cooperation with the person’s home-country tax authority began. In another, a foreign professional athlete who left South Korea without filing taxes paid voluntarily through a domestic representative after the NTS identified a financial account in the athlete’s home country.
A foreign businessperson who had dispersed assets across multiple countries also paid voluntarily after a third-country financial account was detected and collection cooperation was initiated.
For South Korean nationals, the NTS said it has recovered taxes by tracing accounts of overseas corporations operated under borrowed names and collecting the full amount of deposits, or by using information exchange with a country where a delinquent held permanent residency to seize and collect from overseas accounts.
The NTS said it is also upgrading its methods, including directly joining overseas bankruptcy proceedings as a creditor and seizing high-end homes abroad. In one case, a delinquent taxpayer immediately signaled an intent to pay after a luxury home overseas was seized.
An NTS official said shifting assets overseas while benefiting from business in South Korea and failing to pay taxes “not only leaves compliant taxpayers feeling deprived, but also undermines the foundation of national finances and seriously damages fairness and justice in our society.” The official added that the agency will “mobilize all available tax administration capabilities” to respond strictly to malicious delinquents who evade their tax obligations.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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