Seoul City Cracks Down on Unpaid Vehicle Taxes... License Plate Seizure and Forced Towing Included

Crackdown on 236,000 Vehicles with Overdue Automobile Taxes Begins on the 4th
Seoul City to Enforce License Plate Seizure and Forced Towing
Total Overdue Automobile Taxes Reach 53.3 Billion KRW

A comprehensive crackdown on 236,000 vehicles with overdue automobile taxes across Seoul will be conducted.

Seoul City announced on the 3rd that starting from the 4th, over 220 tax officials will be deployed to enforce measures such as license plate seizure and forced towing on vehicles that have overdue automobile taxes more than twice.

Vehicle tax delinquency crackdown site. Provided by Seoul City

Automobile taxes are billed every June and December. Upon the first overdue payment, a seizure warning is issued, and if overdue more than twice, the license plate is seized. Vehicles with habitual overdue payments of five times or more, those with local taxes overdue exceeding 1 million KRW, or vehicles left unattended after seizure will be forcibly towed and subjected to public auction procedures.

As of the end of February this year, there are a total of 236,000 vehicles with overdue automobile taxes in Seoul, accounting for 7.4% of the 3,174,000 registered vehicles. The total overdue automobile tax amounts to 53.3 billion KRW.

Before the crackdown, the city sent seizure warning notices to 101,074 vehicles excluding those with unknown residence, deregistered vehicles, vehicles with ownership changes, and those already seized. Through this, voluntary payments were encouraged, collecting 6 billion KRW in overdue automobile taxes over 12 days.

For vehicles with five or more overdue automobile tax payments or local taxes overdue exceeding 1 million KRW, delivery orders were sent by the city and autonomous districts managing the defaulters. Vehicles that do not comply with the delivery orders by the end of April will be subject to forced towing and other measures.

Considering the difficult economic situation, the city plans to temporarily defer license plate seizures for vehicles operated by self-employed individuals and small business owners for livelihood purposes if they submit or comply with installment payment plans.

Lee Hye-kyung, Director of the Seoul City Finance Bureau, stated, "To ensure fairness with the majority of citizens who faithfully pay their taxes, we will strongly enforce crackdowns on vehicles with overdue automobile taxes so that normal vehicle operation is impossible without paying the taxes."

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