Gyeonggi-do Rolls Up Sleeves to Collect Overdue Taxes from Foreigners... 135,000 People Owe 23 Billion Won

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province is stepping up efforts to collect unpaid taxes from foreigners who fall into tax blind spots.

On the 25th, Gyeonggi Province announced that it will make every effort to collect 23 billion KRW in unpaid taxes from foreigners in tax blind spots due to language barriers and other issues, including conducting a survey on delinquent taxpayers, until December.

Until now, it has been difficult to track delinquent foreign taxpayers due to undelivered notices caused by unknown residence, lack of information due to language barriers, and absence of seizure items.

Accordingly, Gyeonggi Province will implement four measures to realize fair taxation without discrimination between foreigners and nationals.

First, the province will conduct a survey on delinquent taxpayers through the Foreigners Information Joint Use System (FINE) and the delinquent management teams of 31 cities and counties to identify the residences of foreigners and deliver payment guidance notices translated into foreign languages.

Previously, the cities of Ansan, Siheung, and Osan, where industrial complexes are concentrated, hired one North Korean defector and one marriage immigrant fluent in both Korean and Chinese as delinquent management team members for the first time nationwide to encourage tax payments from major delinquent Chinese foreigners.

In addition, from May to July, the province conducted a full survey for the first time among metropolitan local governments to check whether foreign workers holding employment visas (E-9, H-2) had subscribed to exclusive insurance (return cost insurance, departure maturity insurance). Through this, it detected exclusive insurance subscriptions worth 1 billion KRW for 12,405 foreign delinquent taxpayers and plans to induce voluntary payment through seizure notices.

The province also plans to secure tax claims by seizing exclusive insurance for foreigners with many unpaid automobile taxes.

Furthermore, for foreigners with extended stay periods who have local tax arrears, the province will strengthen the "Foreigners' Visa Extension Pre-Local Tax Arrears Confirmation System" in cooperation with the Immigration Office to limit visa extensions to six months or less. It will also produce and distribute tax guidance brochures translated into foreign languages such as English and Chinese at 78 foreigner rest centers within the province.

Kim Min-kyung, Director of the Tax Justice Division of the province, emphasized, "There should be no discrimination between nationals and foreigners in tax payment, and we will strive to realize fair value through improving foreign taxpayers' awareness and various collection measures."

Meanwhile, the main delinquent tax items among foreigners in the province are resident tax and automobile tax, accounting for 93% (98,787 people) of all local tax delinquents, and fines including parking violations, accounting for 99% (28,271 people) of all non-tax revenue delinquents.

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