The National Tax Service said on the 30th it will launch tax audits into 15 multi-home landlords suspected of tax evasion. The alleged amount of evasion is said to reach about 280 billion won. It comes about two months after President Lee Jae-myung raised issues with giving multiple tax breaks to multi-home landlords.
The National Tax Service said it will conduct intensive tax audits of multi-home landlords who evaded rental income and reported private or improper expenses, and of companies that rented out apartments with false ads such as discount sales and then sold them at high prices.
The National Tax Service has opened investigations into 15 entities this time. Of these, five are corporations and 10 are individuals. The corporations are corporate-style apartment rental operators that own 100 or more apartments in Korea. Seven of the 10 individuals are said to own five or more apartments in the so-called Han River belt, including the three Gangnam districts (Seocho, Gangnam and Songpa), Mapo and Seongdong. In addition, three are said to be individuals engaged in apartment sales and rentals.
They hold a total of 3,141 apartments, with an official appraised value of 955.8 billion won. Among them, apartments in the three Gangnam districts of Seoul and within the Han River belt number 324, with an official appraised value of 159.5 billion won. One individual operator was found to own 247 apartments. The corporation with the most dwellings owns 764 apartments.
Individual apartment landlord A, included in the tax audit this time, is suspected of renting eight apartments in Gaepo and Jamsil and failing to report 800 million won in interest income arising from jeonse deposits. The person is also suspected of booking overseas travel and luxury purchases as corporate expenses.
In addition, Construction Company B owned 764 apartments and recruited tenants by saying it would offer discount sales, but in fact did not discount. The company improperly supported about 2 billion won of the revenue thus obtained to a corporation controlled by its child under the pretense of construction services.