Gyeonggi Province Identifies 3,411 Cases of Unreported Acquisition Tax on Facilities Including Elevators

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Park Noh-hoon] Gyeonggi Province announced on the 26th that it conducted a full survey from August to October on 9,334 facilities including newly installed or replaced elevators and automatic car wash facilities over the past five years, identifying 3,411 cases of unreported acquisition tax and collecting approximately 900 million won in back taxes.

Under current laws, unless facilities are included in the building itself, installation or replacement of facilities such as elevators are all subject to acquisition tax. However, cases of omission continue to occur as taxpayers are unaware of this requirement.

The province explained that in addition to collecting back taxes on omitted amounts, it conducted the survey to inform taxpayers that facility installation is subject to acquisition tax.

The types of unreported cases are ▲3,129 cases of unreported acquisition tax on groundwater facility completion ▲241 cases of unreported acquisition tax on replacement of aging elevators ▲41 cases of unreported acquisition tax on newly installed automatic car wash facilities.

In one case, individual A replaced an aging elevator in a building located in Ansan but failed to report and pay acquisition tax within 60 days from the acquisition date as required, resulting in 1.7 million won in charges including surcharges being imposed in this survey.

Gas station B in Goyang newly installed an automatic car wash facility in September 2018 but failed to report and pay acquisition tax by the deadline. Despite automatic car wash facilities being included in acquisition tax reporting and payment subjects from 2015 following a revision to the Local Tax Act enforcement decree in August 2014, this was overlooked, and 4.6 million won in back taxes were collected.

Individual C installed a groundwater facility while commencing construction of a new house in Yangpyeong but only reported and paid acquisition tax on the completed house, which was identified in the survey, and 580,000 won in acquisition tax was collected.

Choi Won-sam, head of the Tax Justice Division at Gyeonggi Province, stated, "Going forward, we will make every effort to prevent tax base leakage through continuous management of such blind spots in taxation," and added, "For cases where taxes are intentionally not paid, we will pursue strict measures including criminal investigation and prosecution through violation proceedings to establish tax justice."