Incheon City announced on the 17th that it will conduct a fact-finding survey targeting 2,691 individuals who have habitually defaulted on local taxes of 10 million won or more.
Among them, 2,235 are local tax defaulters with a total outstanding amount of 238.9 billion won, and 456 are defaulters on local administrative sanctions and charges with an outstanding amount of 43.4 billion won. The city plans to hold a Local Tax Deliberation Committee next month to select candidates for public disclosure if the outstanding amounts are not paid despite encouragement during this investigation.
After providing an opportunity to explain for six months and encouraging voluntary payment, the city will finalize the list of individuals subject to public disclosure through a second Local Tax Deliberation Committee in October. The finalized list of defaulters is scheduled to be published on November 19 on the websites of Incheon City and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
Last year, the city also publicly disclosed the names of 640 defaulters on local taxes or local administrative sanctions and charges, collecting 1.457 billion won.
The public disclosure system for high-amount and habitual local tax defaulters was introduced in 2006 targeting those who defaulted on 100 million won or more. Later, in 2017, the criteria were relaxed by the revision of the Local Tax Collection Act to include defaulters of 10 million won or more.
Meanwhile, for local tax arrears, the disclosure target is based on a nationwide total of 10 million won or more, but for local administrative sanctions and charges, the disclosure target includes those with a combined total of 10 million won or more within Incheon City and its districts.
An official from Incheon City stated, "We plan to actively encourage voluntary payment through the fact-finding survey," adding, "We will carefully select the candidates for public disclosure to minimize disadvantages to taxpayers."
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