Local governments take strong action, including wage seizures, as the number of foreign tax delinquents increases.

Foreigners who have adapted to life in Korea after coming to Korea for more than a year often purchase used cars and drive them around. However, when you own a car, you have to pay taxes, including car tax, on a regular basis.

Recently, as the number of foreigners who do not pay automobile-related taxes has increased, local governments across the country have taken action.

In particular, Gimhae City, Gyeongsangnam-do, took strong measures, such as confiscating the salaries and exclusive insurance of delinquent foreigners.

Gimhae City announced that it operated a liquidation period for foreign delinquent taxpayers from October to November last year and collected over 170 million won in delinquent taxes by confiscating their salaries and worker-only insurance (return cost insurance, departure maturity insurance).

In addition, Gimhae City is responding strongly by detaining 34 car license plates of foreign delinquents, especially in some factory clusters. License plate removal refers to government officials removing license plates from cars that do not pay taxes. Cars without license plates cannot be driven in Korea, so you have no choice but to pay taxes and get license plates.

The number of foreigners in the Gimhae area has increased from about 16,000 in 2021 to about 29,000 at the end of October this year, and the amount of foreigners' arrears has also increased, with the current number of delinquent delinquents reaching about 2,900 and the amount approaching 1.4 billion won.

The reason why there are so many tax delinquencies among foreigners is because they often do not report their change of address even if their residence changes due to frequent moves, so tax notices are not delivered properly.

In addition, lack of tax awareness and lack of information on local tax payment are also pointed out as problems.

This time, Gimhae City conducted a comprehensive survey of the residences of foreign delinquents, compiled their personal information, sent advance notices, and sent text messages on social media. In addition, we produced a multilingual local tax information booklet translated into four languages, including Chinese, Vietnamese, and English, and distributed it to foreign worker support centers.

Gimhae City plans to continue to pursue strong measures, such as ▲seizing deposits and real estate of foreign delinquent taxpayers, ▲promoting public auctions of automobiles, and ▲requesting the immigration office to limit the extension of stay of foreign delinquent delinquents.

Mary Eve of Papaya Story