Rep. Yang Hyang-ja: "80% of National Tax Service Special Recruits Are Legal Professionals, But Response Capability Is 'Questionable'"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] In the past four years, 8 out of 10 special recruits at the National Tax Service (NTS) have been in legal-related positions, but the loss rate in high-value lawsuits exceeding 10 billion won steadily increased from 31% in 2016 to 41% last year, and the litigation costs paid due to losses during the same period reached 13 billion won.

There are concerns that it should be examined whether the NTS is voluntarily engaging in lawsuits due to excessive taxation or if its legal response capability is low.

According to data on the special recruitment status of the NTS over the past five years submitted by Representative Yang Hyangja (Democratic Party of Korea, Gwangju Seo-gu Eul) of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee, among 132 specially recruited personnel, as many as 107 were in legal-related positions.

This shows that the NTS places significant emphasis on work related to tax litigation.

However, over the past four years, the litigation costs paid by the NTS due to losses increased by 21.4%, from about 2.8 billion won in 2016 to about 3.4 billion won.

Litigation costs due to state losses refer to costs borne by the state according to Supreme Court regulations among the costs of losing a lawsuit under litigation law, such as the opposing party's attorney fees, appraisal fees, and stamp duties.

Above all, the increase in the loss rate of high-value lawsuits exceeding 10 billion won was significant. The loss rate of high-value lawsuits, which recorded 31.5% in 2016, rose by about 10 percentage points to 41.0% last year.

This sharply contrasted with the loss rate of small lawsuits under 100 million won, which decreased from 5.3% to 4.0%.

Representative Yang Hyangja said, “The high-value lawsuit loss rate is a chronic problem of the NTS. Despite the NTS overwhelmingly recruiting special personnel in related fields to enhance its response capability, the results are worsening, which raises the question of whether the taxation itself was excessive and needs to be carefully examined.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.