Chairman Jeon In-jang of Samyang Foods Gets Reduced Sentence in 2nd Trial for 'False Tax Invoice' Case

▲Jeon In-jang, Chairman of Samyang Foods

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] Jeon In-jang, chairman of Samyang Foods, who was sentenced to a suspended sentence in the first trial for fabricating false tax invoices worth hundreds of billions of won using paper companies, received a reduced sentence in the appellate court.

The Criminal Division 13 of the Seoul High Court (Presiding Judges Choi Soo-hwan, Choi Sung-bo, Jung Hyun-mi) on the 20th overturned the original sentence that sentenced Chairman Jeon, who was indicted for violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (issuance of false tax invoices, etc.), to three years in prison with a five-year suspended sentence and a fine of 19.1 billion won, and instead sentenced him to one year and six months in prison with a three-year suspended sentence and a fine of 630 million won.

Samyang Foods and three affiliates, indicted together for violating the Tax Offense Punishment Act, were each fined 10 million won in the first trial, but in the second trial, Samyang Foods was acquitted, and the affiliates were fined 8 million won each, reducing their sentences.

The court ruled, "The parts where two affiliates conducted external transactions should be regarded as conducting business with their own assets and responsibilities and paying value-added tax."

However, some tax invoices related to certain transactions were still considered false, and the court stated, "Even if the proportion is small in the whole or it was done temporarily due to business necessity, it does not eliminate the defendant's criminal intent."

Chairman Jeon was indicted for issuing false invoices and tax invoices worth 53.8 billion won through two paper companies he operated from 2010 to 2017.

Samyang Foods is accused of receiving false invoices and tax invoices worth about 53.3 billion won in total over 320 times during the same period from the two paper companies and deceiving as if goods were supplied from the paper companies.

Previously, apart from this trial, Chairman Jeon was sentenced to three years in prison and the sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court for embezzling about 4.9 billion won by fabricating that some packaging boxes and food materials supplied to Samyang Foods from affiliates between 2008 and 2017 were supplied from paper companies.

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