The National Tax Service said on the 11th that corporations notified of a regular tax audit by the agency will be allowed to postpone the audit timing by up to three months.
The National Tax Service said it will introduce a "taxpayer choice of audit timing" as it delivered a work report to President Lee Jae-myung that day.
Currently, the National Tax Service gives corporations 20 days' notice before starting a regular tax audit. At that point, corporations can change the audit timing only if there is an unavoidable reason such as a natural disaster.
As a result, mainly small and midsize companies raised complaints that if a regular tax audit falls during busy periods such as the regular general meeting of shareholders, they are short-handed and find it difficult to respond properly to the audit.
The National Tax Service said that going forward, when notifying corporations of a regular tax audit, it will allow them to choose a desired time within up to three months. For example, when sending a regular tax audit notice to corporation A that day, it would say, "choose your preferred schedule by Mar. 11."
From the corporations' standpoint, once they receive notice of a regular tax audit from the National Tax Service, they will be able to delay it by up to three months.
◇ "110 trillion won in delinquent taxes" grim reaper to be created... 2,000 to be deployed over three years
The National Tax Service also said it will launch a "National Tax Delinquency Management Unit" next year. It said there are currently 1.33 million delinquent taxpayers and their unpaid taxes amount to 110 trillion won. The unit will check how the delinquents are living and ask about their willingness to pay, among other roles.
The National Tax Service initially planned to deploy 2,000 personnel over three years. But President Lee Jae-myung said that day, "You can immediately increase it to 3,000–4,000." Accordingly, it was reported that the number of personnel for the unit will be expanded further.
National Tax Service Commissioner Lim Gwang-hyun said, "We recently ran a pilot of the unit targeting 1,400 delinquents, and in ten days some 200 people paid 300 million won in cash, while some other delinquents submitted plans to pay 6.5 billion won in installments, showing effectiveness."