South Korea’s tax agency will intensify its surveillance of large-sized business groups to head off their tax evasion attempts, a move aimed at establishing fair taxation in the corporate sector, sources said Thursday.

The National Tax Service is planning to deploy 100 top-class investigation experts to regional tax offices in order to help them probe any tax evasion attempts by conglomerates, according to the sources.

“Large companies with annual sales of 500 billion won ($447.4 million) or more account for just 0.1 percent of the total number of corporations, but they make up 56 percent of the whole corporate tax revenues,” an NTS official said on condition of anonymity.

“It is necessary to keep close tabs on such enterprises as their earnest tax payment attitude could have a significant impact on other smaller businesses.”
The 100-member special team will be selected from 700 NTS employees working in its tax investigation divisions. They will be educated more about international transactions and accounting that could be used by companies to avert tax payment.

Their probe will center around conglomerates suspected of omitting profits earned from overseas or transferring domestically generated income to other nations in a suspicious manner, the sources said.

They could also be dispatched overseas to conduct on-spot investigations into foreign affiliates of conglomerates involved in any suspected tax evasion cases, the sources added.

The move is in line with the tax agency’s ongoing efforts to establish fair tax administration in the corporate sector. The NTS has been seeking to toughen its crackdown on ever-sophisticated tactics used by large-sized businesses in avoiding due tax payment. 

(Yonhap News)