Tax authorities are probing 466 people who either have no income or just entered the job market but were mysteriously able to buy expensive homes.
The National Tax Service believes they were given the money for the homes by their parents but did not pay gift tax.
Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki in a meeting last week said, “There has been a sharp increase in the people under 20 buying homes, and tax authorities are paying close attention.”
Buyers under 20 accounted for 6.1 percent of people who bought homes in Seoul in the first quarter of this year, compared to 4.4 percent a year ago.
Meanwhile, the NTS said the amount of outstanding taxes since July 2011 totaled W98.7 trillion as of the end of June (US$1=W1,188). But some 89.9 percent of that is unlikely to be collected because delinquents either have no income or assets or have vanished from the radar. The rest is being collected by assets seizures and other methods.
Considering the fact that the NTS no longer has the right to collect back taxes after 10 years, the amount of never-to-be-paid taxes is increasing by W10 trillion a year.
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