NTS launches tax probe on Seoul-based media

The National Tax Service (NTS) said Thursday that it launched a tax probe of 23 Seoul-based media companies. The administration said it dispatched about 400 employees of the Seoul District Tax Office to companies subject to the probe in a bid to determine whether they fully paid their corporate taxes.

For the coming 60 days, the NTS investigators will go over the companies¡¯ management records from 1995 to 1999, focusing on such areas as accounting, revenues, newspaper sales, interest income, stock transactions, dividends, wages, bonuses and other personnel expenses.

They will also look into the possibility that the companies may have been engaged in illicit financial transactions with their affiliates and that stocks may have been transferred illegally between company owners and their relatives. A similar tax probe was also launched on paper suppliers such as Hansol Paper, Pan Asia Paper, Bowater-Halla Paper, Sepung and Daehan Paper.

NTS officials said they already secured accounting books of some newspaper companies¡¯ branch offices through an advance investigation. The administration plans to conduct an intensive investigation on companies that are suspected of large-scale tax evasion.

Yonhap