Actor Kim Seon-ho has been engulfed in allegations that he may have committed tax evasion in a similar way to fellow agency artist Cha Eun-woo.
On the 1st, one media outlet raised suspicions, saying there are signs that Kim Seon-ho created and operated a family corporation separate from his current agency Fantagio and effectively committed tax evasion.
That day a Fantagio representative told OSEN, "We are reviewing the report and organizing our position," and "We will announce our position when it is finalized," they said briefly.
According to the report, Kim Seon-ho is known to have created and operated a separate performance planning corporation registered at his personal home address in Yongsan District, Seoul. Kim Seon-ho serves as the chief executive officer of that corporation, and the internal director Mr. Kim and auditor Mr. Park are said to be Kim Seon-ho's parents. Although the business purpose included entertainment-related activities, it was pointed out that the corporation did not register for popular arts and culture planning. It was also explained that forming a board composed only of family members without external professional managers appears to be a setup to flexibly use company funds at the family level.
The outlet said it also obtained testimony that Kim Seon-ho paid his parents monthly salaries ranging from several hundred thousand won to several million won through the corporation's bank account, and that the parents who received salaries from the corporation then transferred the money back to Kim Seon-ho each month. The report said Kim Seon-ho's parents used the corporation-owned card to pay living and entertainment expenses, that the father charged cigarette and karaoke bar expenses to the corporate card, and that the vehicle they used was registered under the corporation's name.
It suggested that increasing company expenses to deduct them as losses was intended to reduce corporate tax, and suspected that private use of the corporate card amounted to breach of trust and embezzlement. The report argued that the corporation's address and Kim Seon-ho's residence share the same address, making it hard to dispel suspicions that it is a paper company.
Currently, Kim Seon-ho and Cha Eun-woo are both under the same agency, Fantagio. The outlet pointed out that Cha Eun-woo, who was recently at the center of a socially significant "20 billion won tax evasion controversy," and Kim Seon-ho appear to have very similar "tax-saving (tax evasion) structures."
The outlet added that in Fantagio's case there is a rising possibility that the company used family corporations to route settlements not only for Cha Eun-woo but also for Kim Seon-ho in the same way, and that the company could not have been unaware of such irregular settlement structures for its artists. If the company knew and tolerated it or actively intervened, it said, this could be seen as a serious violation of the accounting transparency of a listed company.
Meanwhile, Kim Seon-ho recently appeared in the Netflix series "Does this love get translated?"
[Photo] OSEN DB
[OSEN]