Gyeonggi-do Proposes Government to Ease Reward Payment Criteria and Increase Rewards for Tax Evasion Reports

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province has requested the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to relax the criteria for reward payments and increase the reward amounts to promote civilian reporting of concealed assets hidden by local tax evaders or delinquent taxpayers.

On the 4th, Gyeonggi Province announced that it requested the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to relax the payment criteria from a tax evasion amount of 30 million KRW or more to 10 million KRW or more, and from a concealed asset reporting collection amount of 10 million KRW or more to 5 million KRW or more. They also requested that the reward rate be expanded from the current 5-15% up to a maximum of 20%.

The province explained that the background for this request is that compared to national taxes, the criteria for local tax reporting rewards are high and the reward amounts are low, resulting in only about three reports from residents over the past three years since 2019.

Since the introduction of the reward system in 2019, the province has paid civilian reporting rewards for only three cases, totaling 45,752,000 KRW.

In fact, for national taxes, when the tax evasion or concealed asset reporting collection amount exceeds 50 million KRW, 5-20% of the collected amount is paid as a reward, with a maximum reward of up to 4 billion KRW for tax evasion reports and up to 3 billion KRW for concealed asset reports. While the scale of national and local tax collections differs by about three times, the criteria for reward payments show little difference.

Ryu Young-yong, head of the Tax Justice Division of the province, said, "There are hundreds of national tax evasion reports annually, but in Gyeonggi Province, there have been only about three cases in three years, indicating low interest among local residents. We believe it is reasonable to lower the payment criteria and provide rewards comparable to national taxes according to the proportion of national and local taxes, and thus we have made this request to the government."

Meanwhile, eligible recipients of the rewards include ▲ those who provide important data for calculating local tax evasion amounts and improper refund or exemption amounts ▲ those who report concealed assets of delinquent taxpayers ▲ those who discover and enable the imposition of abandoned or hidden tax sources. Related reports should be submitted to the city or county tax office with specific documents such as accounting records and related ledgers that can verify tax evasion or concealed assets of delinquent taxpayers.