A number of high-profile figures, including former chairman of Daewoo Group Kim Woo-choong and former President Chun Doo-hwan, are on a newly released list of some 9,260 delinquent taxpayers -- those who failed to pay at least 10 million won ($8,824) worth of local taxes in the past year.

Made public on Wednesday by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and municipal governments, the list exposed people who collectively owed some 500 billion won in taxes. Former Bohae Mutual Savings Bank CEO Oh Mun-chul was at the top, owing about 10.4 billion won as of last year.

Oh is currently serving a prison term for embezzlement.

In second place was Oh Jung-hyun, the former chief executive officer of SSCP, a controversial IT company that went bankrupt in 2012. He did not pay 8.6 billion won in taxes last year.

Other notable figures on the list included former President Chun Doo-hwan, who failed to pay 880 million won; Chung Tae-soo, the former head of Hambo Group, who owed 4.9 billion won; Cho Dong-man, the former vice chairman of Hansol Group, who has an overdue tax bill of 8.3 billion won; and Kim Woo-choong, the former chairman of Daewoo Group, who failed to pay 3.5 billion won.

The largest proportion of tax delinquents, or 54.3 percent, were Seoul metropolitan area residents, and the total amount they failed to pay accounted for 65 percent of all overdue taxes last year.

Tax delinquents in their 50s comprised the largest proportion of the group at 35.4 percent. This was followed by people in their 60s (24.2 percent) and those in their 40s (20.9 percent).

Of the 9,260 tax delinquents who owed at least 10 million won, 809 owed 100 million won or more. Twenty-five people had overdue tax bills that exceeded 1 billion won.


By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)