Tax office starts second round of inspection of love hotels

Following the first round of a special tax inspection of ¡°love hotels¡± in the metropolitan area, the National Tax Service (NTS) started on Friday the second round of the inspection, which will target 329 love hotels in Seoul, Inchon, Kwangju, Taejon, Pusan and other locales nationwide.

To guarantee thorough probes, the NTS plans to mobilize a total of 990 tax officials, divided into 329 teams, from provincial tax service offices and will conduct tax inspections for 30 days from Nov. 9. The tax officials will probe the fund sources of the hotels by tracking their bank accounts and hotel business conditions.

Subject to the tax probes are 87 hotels in Seoul, 116 in Inchon and Kyonggi-do, 33 in Taejon and Chungchong-do, 27 in Taegu and Kyongsangbuk-do, 23 in Kwangju and Cholla-do, and 43 in Pusan and Kyongsangnam-do.

According to the NTS, in one case, a man leased and operated five love hotels but disguised himself as their owner-businessman and thus dodged tax amounting to 491 million won out of his income of 645 million won.

If tax evasions are found in the course of the first and second rounds of probes, the NTS will make an additional collection of the evaded tax and file suits against violators. In particular, the tax administration plans to operate a special task force in the tax offices and will continue to conduct continuous surveillance of the love hotels as well as special tax inspections.

Lee Hoon dreamland@donga.com