In order to avoid paying taxes, large arrears have been caught using virtual assets such as’Bitcoin’ to conceal their assets. The tax authorities first enforced compulsory collection of delinquents using virtual assets.
The National Tax Service announced on the 15th that it collected about 36.6 billion won in cash or secured bonds for the 2416 high-payers who concealed their assets with virtual assets.
In addition, 222 of these were confirmed to be suspected of avoiding deliberate forced collection due to concealment of real estate transfer payments, inheritance and gifted property, and are conducting follow-up investigations, he added.
This measure is the first compulsory government department to collect delinquents who have concealed their assets as virtual assets. The tax authority designated the collection point on the virtual asset exchange and went through the process of cashing and collecting. It was found that the caught delinquents concealed their assets through various virtual assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple.
An official from the National Tax Service explained, “The Supreme Court ruled that virtual assets correspond to intangible assets with property value that are subject to confiscation.” .
Looking at the types of property concealment disclosed by the National Tax Service, Mr. A, who operates a hospital in Gangnam, Seoul and lives in an expensive apartment, did not pay 2.7 billion won in arrears, and concealed an income of 3.9 billion won as a virtual asset. Mr. A paid the full amount in cash by himself when the tax authorities notified him of the foreclosure.
In addition, Mr. B transferred the real estate located in Gyeonggi-do for 4.8 billion won, without paying 1.2 billion won in capital gains tax, and concealed the transfer price as a virtual asset. The tax authorities seized, collected the entire amount, and collected cash.
In addition, a case of concealing an inheritance of 500 million won as a virtual asset without paying an inheritance tax of 1.7 billion won on financial property inherited by the death of the father of 1.7 billion won; There was also a case of hiding as a virtual asset.
The National Tax Service expects that the effectiveness of compulsory collection will increase even more as the price of virtual assets such as bitcoin has recently skyrocketed. Bitcoin has soared from 341,000 won in 2014 to 31 million won in 2020 and surpassed 70 million won this year.
“In the case of virtual assets, the efficiency of compulsory collection is most important,” said Jung Cheol-woo, head of the Taxation and Legal Affairs Bureau of the National Tax Service.
The National Tax Service is planning to keep track of the hidden assets of high-liquid payments, such as responding quickly to new concealment techniques. In particular, various collection plans are being devised, such as promoting new planning and analysis and expanding the collection of data from external organizations for the increasingly intelligent property hiding behavior.
In this year’s New Year’s Address, Director of National Tax Service Kim Dae-ji also said, “We will strictly respond to anti-social arrears that hinder the sincerity of tax payments. We will strengthen tracking and collection activities for malicious high-payers by actively utilizing the base for collection of arrears such as advanced big data analysis.” It has been said.
An official from the National Tax Service said, “The voluntary participation of the people is paramount to finding the hidden property of nonpayers,” and stressed, “For a society where sincere taxpayers are respected and tax justice is realized, active reporting is necessary.”
The tax authorities are operating a reporting reward system for citizens who contributed to the collection of arrears by reporting the hidden property of large or habitual delinquent payers of 50 million won or more. The payment amount is up to 2 billion won by applying a payment rate of 5-20% depending on the amount collected.
