The Board of Audit and Inspection said on the 27th that the National Tax Service failed to collect taxes in time from people caught operating so-called manager-run hospitals, losing about 30 billion won.
The Board of Audit and Inspection said it conducted a regular audit of the National Tax Service in May–June last year and notified the agency after finding 23 issues.
The National Health Insurance Service is detecting places that operated hospitals and pharmacies under someone else's name and is submitting the list to the National Tax Service. Those caught must return not only the long-term care benefits supported by state finances but also the value-added tax they received as a tax exemption.
According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, over the five years from 2020 to 2024, the National Tax Service received data from the National Health Insurance Service on 573 cases, including medical institutions that improperly received value-added tax exemptions due to violations of the Medical Service Act. Excluding institutions whose statute of limitations for tax assessment (seven years) had already expired, 491 cases were eligible for taxation.
However, the National Tax Service did not verify whether convictions had been finalized for these manager-run hospitals and others. As a result, in 24 cases the statute of limitations expired before conviction was finalized, and the National Tax Service failed to collect 3.6 billion won in value-added tax. In 105 cases the statute of limitations for tax assessment expired after conviction was finalized, and the National Tax Service failed to collect 26.7 billion won.
The Board of Audit and Inspection said there is also concern that 31.0 billion won (64 cases), for which the statute of limitations for tax assessment still remains, may not be properly collected. This is because the tax assessment data are not being properly managed. In this regard, the Board of Audit and Inspection cautioned the National Tax Service to conduct tax oversight duties thoroughly.
Meanwhile, the Board of Audit and Inspection said the National Tax Service mistakenly selected 120 corporations as targets for tax audits in 2024–2025 due to internal errors. The National Tax Service calculates compliance based on past tax filings, selecting corporations with lower scores first for tax audits. However, for some corporations, compliance was mistakenly calculated too low, making them targets for tax audits. Of these, a little over 50 actually underwent tax audits, and 43 were assessed additional taxes totaling 3.7 billion won.