Refund of Incorrectly Charged Taxes... Seongdong-gu Conducts Comprehensive Survey of Destroyed Vehicles

277 Cases Resolved Including Erroneous Automobile Tax Refunds, Seizure Releases, and Vehicle Registration Plate Unseizures

An investigation is underway to release the license plate impoundment for a destroyed vehicle.

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Seongdong-gu (Mayor Jung Won-oh) has launched a comprehensive investigation into wrongful handling such as mistaken imposition of automobile tax and seizure on destroyed and deregistered vehicles, aiming to protect taxpayers' rights.

From the end of August through September, the district, led by the Taxpayer Protection Officer, established a comprehensive plan to resolve automobile-related grievances and began a full investigation into destroyed vehicles.

The investigation focused on system errors or unprocessed cases due to unregistered destroyed or deregistered vehicles, addressing long-standing grievances by canceling and refunding mistakenly imposed automobile taxes, lifting seizures, and releasing vehicle registration license plate confiscations.

By the end of last month, the district lifted seizures on 65 vehicles where seizure was ineffective due to destruction or unprocessed status, canceled and refunded automobile taxes mistakenly imposed after recognizing destruction in 62 cases, and released license plate confiscations and dismissed fines in 150 cases, correcting a total of 277 wrongful handling cases.

The total amount involved corresponds to over 57 million KRW for 163 individuals.

A 62-year-old resident from Kumho-dong, Mr. A, said, “I was frustrated and unsure how to handle the continuous automobile tax imposed on two vehicles scrapped in 2016, so I paid the taxes, but now that they say they will refund everything, I am very happy and feel relieved.”

Additionally, the district is actively working to protect rights and resolve grievances by promoting prompt public auctions to address complaints about continued tax imposition even when vehicle registration license plates have been confiscated for over a year.

Jung Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, stated, “Since May last year, the district has been operating the Taxpayer Protection Officer system to protect taxpayers' legitimate rights. Leading this project, we will do our best to implement fair and transparent tax administration through proactive grievance detection and resolution.”