Korea Customs Service to Conduct Comprehensive Survey of Delinquency Status and Operate Special Settlement Period

The Korea Customs Service will strengthen its management of delinquent taxpayers through a comprehensive survey of delinquency status and the operation of a special delinquency settlement period.

On September 18, the Korea Customs Service announced the "Special Measures for Customs Duty Delinquency Settlement," which includes these initiatives.

This special measure is being implemented in response to the steadily increasing scale of tax delinquencies over the past five years. The annual amount of delinquent taxes (number of individuals) rose from 1.578 trillion won (2,523 people) in 2021 to 1.9003 trillion won (2,455 people) in 2022, 1.99 trillion won (2,615 people) in 2023, 2.0786 trillion won (2,567 people) last year, and 2.1155 trillion won (2,518 people) from January to August this year.

In response, the Korea Customs Service will operate a "Special Delinquency Settlement Period" focusing on long-term and large-scale or new delinquents. It will also establish a Customs Duty Delinquency Management Team to conduct a "comprehensive survey of delinquency status" and begin organizing delinquent taxpayers.

The special delinquency settlement period will run from September 18 to December 12 this year. During this period, there will be an intensive effort to address long-term, large-scale, and new delinquencies.

In particular, the agency plans to enhance the effectiveness of delinquency settlement by intensively tracking concealed assets of delinquent taxpayers and applying administrative sanctions such as interviews, home searches, seizures, and auctions.

Conversely, for delinquent taxpayers who demonstrate a willingness to pay, incentives will be provided to encourage voluntary payment. These include installment payments, deferral of compulsory collection, seizure or auction, suspension of credit information provision, lifting of travel bans, and refraining from requesting detention.

The Korea Customs Service will also conduct its first-ever comprehensive survey of delinquency status. This survey will be led by the newly established Customs Duty Delinquency Management Team.

The Customs Duty Delinquency Management Team will verify the actual residence, living standards, income, and assets of delinquent taxpayers to determine the existence of concealed assets and intentional delinquency. By confirming payment intentions and plans through face-to-face meetings, the team will collect information needed for reclassifying delinquent taxpayers and establishing a tailored management system.

The comprehensive survey will be piloted in the fourth quarter of this year with 100 large-scale delinquent taxpayers, and will be fully implemented starting March next year.

Based on the results of the survey, the Korea Customs Service will classify types of delinquent taxpayers for customized management and will establish a "delinquent taxpayer profile database" to lay the foundation for systematic delinquency management.

Additionally, the Korea Customs Service will strengthen its tracking of concealed assets by delinquent taxpayers using new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence (AI), and will also explore ways to analyze and collect virtual assets.

Lee Myunggu, Commissioner of the Korea Customs Service, stated, "Through efficient delinquency settlement, we will secure resources to fulfill government policy tasks and support the recovery of those facing livelihood-related or temporary delinquencies, thereby realizing tax justice and fair growth." He added, "We urge the public to pay close attention and report cases to help track concealed assets of intentional and habitual delinquent taxpayers."

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