The National Tax Service said on the 14th that it signed a working-level memorandum of understanding (MOU) on cooperation for collecting delinquent taxes with the tax authorities of the United Kingdom, Belgium and Hungary.
Administrator Lim Gwang-hyeon held bilateral meetings with the heads of tax authorities from each country from the 8th to the 13th and signed the MOUs. Lim asked each country to cooperate in collecting delinquent taxes from domestic suspects of tax evasion whose overseas asset tracing and recovery procedures are underway.
Lim asked for swift seizure procedures against a foreign delinquent professional athlete who was active in Korea, failed to pay taxes and transferred to a European league. He also discussed conducting simultaneous tax audits and sharing audit information for Korean delinquents whose names appear on the list of habitual high-amount delinquents.
The National Tax Service said, "This meeting was prepared to strengthen a collection-cooperation network with major European countries for the recovery of delinquents' overseas assets," and added, "It is meaningful in that the scope of collection cooperation, which had mainly focused on the Asia-Pacific region, has been expanded to Europe."