[Column] To Prevent the Repetition of the 'Death of a Tax Official'

"A second 'Donghwaseong Tax Office Incident' must not occur. Things need to change now." (An employee of the National Tax Service)

It has already been a month since the 'Donghwaseong Tax Office Incident,' where a civil service officer collapsed and died while dealing with a complainant. The late Kang Yunsuk, head of the Civil Service Office at Donghwaseong Tax Office in Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi, collapsed and lost consciousness on the 24th of last month while attending to a female complainant, and ultimately passed away on the 16th. It is reported that the complainant raised her voice after being denied the issuance of real estate-related documents due to unmet requirements. The message from this incident is clear: frontline tax office employees have been fully exposed to malicious complainants without proper protective measures.

The accumulated anxiety among National Tax Service employees from dealing with malicious complainants is considerable. Following this incident, cries have emerged beyond appeals for protective measures, saying, "Today, I could be the head of the Donghwaseong Civil Service Office." National Tax Service employees visited the unconscious Civil Service Office head daily, and after the incident, condolence wreaths bearing the name "Fellow Tax Officials" were delivered to Donghwaseong Tax Office and the National Tax Service headquarters. An employee of the National Tax Service pleaded, "Posthumously promoting the deceased to administrative officer does not solve the problem. Please establish fundamental solutions."

The National Tax Service is not unaware of the gravity of the incident. After the Civil Service Office head collapsed, the National Tax Service distributed portable voice recorders to all tax offices nationwide and requested a police investigation to clarify the circumstances of the incident.

However, this is not a solution that can protect employees who must face malicious complainants daily. Employees are demanding the deployment of 'security personnel' who can physically protect them from malicious complainants to prevent recurrence. They understand that placing even one security guard in each of the 133 tax offices would require billions of won, but the situation faced by tax officials is that desperate.

The National Assembly was the first to respond to the tax officials' desperate cries. On the 22nd, Yang Gi-dae, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, proposed a partial amendment to the 'Act on Civil Complaints Handling,' requiring heads of administrative agencies to establish protection measures for civil complaint handlers and report annually to the relevant minister.

The government must also take more proactive action. The National Tax Service is operating a 'Civil Complaint Response System Improvement Task Force (TF)' to prepare a 'Comprehensive Countermeasure for Malicious Complaints.' It is hoped that the forthcoming plan will include fundamental measures to protect against 'whining complaints' rather than 'legitimate complaints.'

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