Tax Evasion and Price Hikes: National Tax Service Launches Probes into 41 Businesses

[Anchor]

Ahead of the Chuseok holiday, the National Tax Service has launched tax investigations into 41 entities, including egg farms, food distribution and processing companies, and restaurant franchises, for fueling inflation. These businesses allegedly received false tax invoices or artificially inflated costs, with suspected tax evasion amounting to roughly 1 trillion won.

Reporter Lee Tae-gwon has the details.

[Reporter]

The National Tax Service announced that it has initiated tax audits against market-disturbing businesses that passed the burden of rising prices onto consumers by inflating costs through collusion, monopolies, and unfair practices.

The subjects of the investigation total 41 businesses, including 23 agricultural and livestock product distributors, 16 processed food, restaurant franchise, and delivery platform companies, and 2 fashion platforms. The amount involved in suspected tax evasion reaches approximately 1 trillion won.

Eleven egg farms were found to have underreported billions of won in profits over a period of three to five years.

Investigations revealed that they evaded taxes by receiving payments from clients into accounts not designated for business use or by dispersing revenues to dummy chicken farms under family names.

One sesame importer secured low-tariff quota allocations through a front company and distributed sales revenues to the front company, while the spouse of the company's owner reportedly embezzled corporate funds to purchase an apartment.

Other targets include a processed food company that created offshore slush funds by paying excessive commissions to a related-party entity established by a retired executive and sending large sums under the guise of investment funds to an overseas entity where the owner's child works, as well as a franchise headquarters whose owner operated franchise stores under employee names and purchased three supercars worth hundreds of millions of won for personal use.

The National Tax Service plans to intensely examine the production costs, the appropriateness of transactions with clients, and the wealth-formation process of the owners' families, while taking strict action against tax crimes.

[Video Editing: Kim Jun-hee]
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.