Fantagio, the agency of actors Cha Eun-woo and Kim Seon-ho, who face tax evasion allegations, acknowledged poor management of its artists and apologized.
According to the entertainment industry on the 9th, Fantagio recently posted an apology on its official website, saying, "We deeply apologize for causing concern to many people due to controversies related to taxes involving our company and our artists."
Earlier, at the start of last year, Cha Eun-woo underwent a tax audit by the Seoul Regional Tax Service and was notified of an additional tax assessment in the 20 billion won range. Cha Eun-woo was said to have set up a personal agency and signed a management service contract in an attempt to be subject to the corporate tax rate. This was an attempt to pay less tax by taking advantage of the fact that the corporate tax rate is lower than the income tax rate, which goes up to 45%.
Afterward, suspicions also arose that Kim Seon-ho engaged in tax evasion through a personal corporation established during a previous agency period using a similar method.
Fantagio apologized, saying, "We are taking this not as a simple individual matter but as a problem stemming from the company's lack of management responsibility," and added, "As a company that must manage and support all aspects of our artists' activities, we failed to sufficiently review the matter in advance and recognize that there were shortcomings in our management process. We take this seriously and are reflecting on it."
It continued, "We are now conducting a full reassessment of our internal management system and decision-making process," adding, "We are pursuing practical improvements, including strengthening pre-verification procedures such as tax and legal reviews."
Fantagio also pledged to prevent a recurrence, saying, "We will faithfully comply with the relevant procedures and continuously enhance our internal control system to ensure similar cases do not happen again."
Cha Eun-woo also said on the 8th via social media (SNS) that all related taxes had been paid. Cha Eun-woo said, "I am taking this matter much more seriously and deeply," adding, "If there were any parts I failed to look into sufficiently, all responsibility lies with me. I will not avoid responsibility by saying I 'didn't know' or that it 'was someone else's judgment' for any reason."
Kim Seon-ho also said he paid additional personal income tax on top of the corporate tax he had already paid and is proceeding with closing the related corporation.