Father forced me to lend my name, insurance premium bomb... Court rules "No obligation to pay"

Fear of Domestic Violence Leads to Lending Business Registration
Court Rules "Actual Business Owner Must Pay"

A daughter who lent her business registration under her father's coercion and even took on insurance premiums won a lawsuit against the National Pension Service demanding a change of registration. The court ruled, "If the actual business owner is identified, the registration must be retroactively changed."

According to the legal community on the 26th, the Seoul Administrative Court Administrative Division 2 (Chief Judge Shin Myung-hee) ruled partially in favor of plaintiff A in a lawsuit confirming the non-existence of the obligation to pay national pension insurance premiums filed against the National Pension Service.

In March 2015, while attending university, A was asked by her father B to "lend the business registration." It was investigated that A complied out of fear of retaliation from her father, who habitually committed domestic violence.

B had assaulted A’s mother multiple times around 2004, when A was in elementary school, causing a fractured nasal bone and cracked ribs. As a result, A, her mother, and sister fled to other regions 5 to 6 times, and eventually, in November 2007, A’s mother and B divorced, after which A lived with her mother.

B registered a business subject to the National Pension under A’s name, and from May 2015 to November 2016, about 50 million KRW in taxes, including value-added tax, were imposed on the business. However, B did not pay these taxes, and the tax liability was attributed to A, the registered business owner.

A claimed that the actual business owner was her father and that she lent her registration out of fear of his violence, requesting cancellation of the reported tax amount. When the tax authority rejected this in March 2019, A filed a cancellation review with the National Tax Service, which accepted her claim in February 2020, annulling the National Pension Service’s refusal.

[Image source=Pixabay]

Subsequently, in November 2020, A submitted the National Tax Service’s review decision to the National Pension Service and applied to retroactively change the business owner to B as of September 16, 2015, the date the business was registered with the National Pension Service. The National Pension Service changed the business owner to B as of February 14, 2020, the date the National Tax Service’s decision was notified to the plaintiff, but notified that retroactive changes to earlier dates were impossible.

In response, A argued that she had no obligation to pay the 49,098,160 KRW in national pension insurance premiums imposed on her from 2015 to 2016 and requested cancellation of the National Pension Service’s refusal to retroactively change the business owner.

The court ruled partially in favor of the plaintiff, stating, "It is unfair to refuse the change when the actual business owner has been identified." The fact that the National Tax Service had recognized the coercive lending of the registration and canceled the value-added tax imposition, which the National Pension Service was aware of, was also a basis for the judgment.

However, the court held that "the National Pension Service does not have the authority to examine the truthfulness of the registration, so imposing insurance premiums on the reported business owner is legitimate," and deemed the imposition of the remaining 49.1 million KRW in national pension insurance premiums lawful.

The ruling became final as the National Pension Service did not appeal. Since the business owner was changed retroactively to the biological father as of September 2015, when the initial business registration was made, unless there are special circumstances, the obligation to pay insurance premiums also falls to B.

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