Lee Man-hee, the leader of the Shincheonji religious sect who is currently on trial in custody on charges of orchestrating the illegal enrollment of Shincheonji followers as members of the People Power Party, has been additionally indicted on charges of tax evasion amounting to billions of won.

The Joint Investigation Headquarters for Church-State Collusion Corruption announced today (July 24) that it has indicted Lee and a former head of Shincheonji's business department, surnamed Jeong, on charges of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes (Tax Evasion).

The Shincheonji organization was also sent to trial on charges of violating the Punishment of Tax Evaders Act.

Lee and the others are accused of evading corporate and value-added taxes totaling 7.57 billion won between 2016 and 2020 by operating branch church convenience stores nationwide under the names of followers to conceal profit-making businesses and maintaining double bookkeeping for the stores.

Previously, the Seoul Regional National Tax Service investigated allegations of tax evasion by Lee, imposed 12.2 billion won in corporate taxes and value-added taxes for the 2012–2019 business years, and filed a complaint with prosecutors against Lee and others on charges including tax evasion.

The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office, which investigated the case, issued a non-indictment decision for Lee and the others in October 2021, the year following the complaint.

The Joint Investigation Headquarters, which subsequently took over and reinvestigated the case, concluded that the tax evasion charges against Lee and the others were substantiated, excluding portions of the tax authorities' disciplinary actions whose statute of limitations had expired, and brought them to trial by including the remaining charges in the criminal facts.

Lee is currently being tried after being indicted in custody on charges of forcibly registering Shincheonji followers as members of the People Power Party.

The Joint Investigation Headquarters is also investigating allegations that Lee attempted lobbying through Lee Hee-ja, chairwoman of the Geunwoohoe, to hush up the tax audits and prosecution investigations.

In June 2021, Ko Dong-an, then the second-in-command and former secretary-general of Shincheonji, mentioned in a phone call with a former Shincheonji executive, "(Lee said) he will call Geunwoohoe Chairwoman Lee Hee-ja and ask for help, and that he will explicitly tell her to handle the Suwon district chief prosecutor through lawmaker A."

He went on to explain, "He said it would be best to meet with lawmaker A, check how he can exert influence over the Suwon district chief prosecutor, and if he can exert definitive influence, ask him to hush up the tax evasion case, not anything else."

Previously, SBS reported exclusively in February that Shincheonji lost all lawsuits it had filed claiming that the 14 billion won in taxes imposed by the government during the COVID-19 pandemic was unjust, and that the ruling contained details showing circumstances in which Shincheonji had evaded taxes through dummy accounts and double account books.