"Influencers Caught in Tax Portal for 'Importing and Selling as If for Personal Use'"

An influencer who evaded taxes by purchasing items through overseas direct purchase as if for personal use but actually selling them to other consumers was caught by customs.

Busan Customs of the Korea Customs Service announced on the 27th that it has sent A (female in her 30s) to the Busan District Prosecutors' Office without detention (reported) on charges of violating the Customs Act and the Special Act on Imported Food Safety Management.

According to Busan Customs, A is suspected of defrauding taxes while acting as a purchasing agent for about 45,000 buyers, buying over 30,000 health supplement products through overseas direct purchase from June 2019 to November 2023.

She charged the actual buyers a price including customs duties and value-added tax (VAT) that must be paid upon import clearance, but declared the items to customs as goods for personal use to receive tax exemption. She exploited the exemption of customs duties and VAT on personal use goods valued under $150. It is estimated that the amount of taxes A defrauded through this method is about 500 million KRW.

While acting as a purchasing agent for overseas direct purchase, A also fraudulently reduced taxes worth about 15 million KRW by using other people's names. In the process of purchasing about 16,000 health supplements for influencers and others around her, she used the personal customs clearance codes of about 40 people including family members and employees, distributing and importing them as personal consumption goods to fraudulently reduce customs duties. It was also confirmed that about 2,500 of the overseas direct purchased health supplements were not even reported to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for import.

Busan Customs became suspicious of health supplements for personal consumption being continuously delivered to the same address, conducted a detailed analysis of customs clearance records, traced the route backward, and confirmed and arrested A's crime.

A Busan Customs official said, "We plan to recover about 1 billion KRW including additional taxes and interest for the tax evasion and fraudulent reductions by A," and added, "Tax evasion by overseas direct purchase purchasing agents causes losses to national finances and deceives domestic consumers. Customs will strengthen crackdowns in response."