Person with Intellectual Disability Faces 'Hundred-Million Won Tax Bomb' Due to Identity Theft... Court Provides Relief

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] A person with an intellectual disability who was registered as a business operator through identity theft and faced a tax bomb worth hundreds of millions of won has been relieved of payment responsibility by a court ruling.

According to the legal community on the 5th, the Seoul Administrative Court Administrative Division 6 (Chief Judge Juyoung Lee) ruled in favor of A (40) in a lawsuit confirming the non-existence of tax liability against the government and Yeoju City. The court stated, "If the tax authority had conducted a simple fact check at the time of imposing the tax, it would have been relatively easy to recognize that A was not the actual operator of the gas station," and added, "The tax imposition is invalid due to serious and obvious defects."

A, an intellectually disabled person with a social age of only 8 years, lived under the care of his older sister but went missing in 2014 and was found several years later. During the missing period, A’s identity was stolen and registered as a gas station business operator in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, and the tax authorities imposed income tax and value-added tax amounting to approximately 268.3 million won. After being found by his sister, A filed a lawsuit last year to cancel the taxation, claiming that he was merely a nominal lender.

Meanwhile, B, who stole A’s identity, was prosecuted for quasi-fraud and received a confirmed prison sentence of one year in August 2018. Investigations revealed that B not only registered the gas station business under A’s name but also issued credit cards in A’s name, making payments totaling 16.15 million won, and borrowed about 25.7 million won from loan companies. B’s crimes were uncovered following a complaint filed by A’s guardian, his sister.

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