The National Tax Service said on the 26th it will conduct a full review in the second half of the year of cases of business loans to see if there were "trick" transactions used to fund the purchase of dwellings. It said that if borrowers voluntarily repay the loan funds before the review, they will be excluded from verification.
In a news release distributed that day, the National Tax Service said, "The full verification of business loans is scheduled to begin in earnest in the second half of this year, after the deadline for filing 2025 comprehensive income tax returns." It added, "We will also verify earlier transaction items for which data have been secured, including dwellings acquired last year."
The National Tax Service said it recently confirmed in the course of an investigation that a high-income business operator obtained a business loan and acquired an apartment in Seoul's Gangnam for tens of billions of won. The National Tax Service also found that this person failed to report tens of billions of won in income and committed tax evasion by booking interest related to the business loan as enterprise expenses. It said it levied several hundred million won in income tax.
The National Tax Service said that ahead of the full verification, if misused business loans are voluntarily repaid, they will be excluded from verification.
Earlier, on the 17th, the president warned on X (formerly Twitter) regarding cases of purchasing real estate with business-purpose loans, saying, "The Financial Supervisory Service and the National Tax Service can jointly conduct a full investigation, file criminal complaints for fraud, and even recover the loan principal. Far from any speculative gain, you could even lose your principal." Then National Tax Service Commissioner Lim Gwang-hyeon said on X on the 19th, "The National Tax Service will fully verify cases recorded as business loans in funding plans, and if tax evasion is confirmed, we will respond sternly."