April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Companies with more than 100 billion won (US$86.46 million) annual sales will be subject to a tax audit by the National Tax Office every five years, the tax agency announced on Jan. 26.

Until now, only those with annual sales exceeding 200 billion won were subject to the periodic tax audits. Companies not subjected to the regular audits were audited once every four to eight years.

As such, the NTS expects the changes will remove uncertainties regarding tax audits for a wider range of companies, and plans to expand the regular audit system.

At present, about 3,300 of the country’s 585,000 or so companies have annual sales of 200 billion won or more.

Although more companies will be included in the category for regular audits, the NTS says that the number of audits will not necessarily rise.

The sales bracket for regular audits was initially set at 500 billion won or more in 2009, but the number of tax audits conducted each year has been declining from 18,000 in 2012 to about 17,000 last year. This year, the NTS plans to audit less than 17,000 companies.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)