South Korea’s National Tax Service (NTS) reportedly slapped around 100 billion won ($93 million) tax on security firms and banks that had opened borrowed-name accounts for Samsung Group’s bedridden chairman Lee Kun-hee, according to sources from the financial industry on Sunday.

The country’s tax authority has taken the latest action amid ongoing probes on Lee’s borrowed-name accounts. The Financial Supervisory Services (FSS) earlier this month announced that its probe has found Samsung chief had 6.2 billion won stashed away in 27 accounts for illicit tax evasion as of August 12, 1993 when the Real Name Financial Transactions Act enacted.

Under the Real Name Financial Transactions Act to require all financial transactions to be made in real names to prevent money laundering and tax evasion, interest and dividend income in accounts under other people’s names is subject to a withholding tax of 90 percent. NTS has also imposed penalties on the banks and brokerages for interest and dividend profits earned from borrowed-name accounts of other major conglomerates.

The financial institutions that received the tax bill are expected to pay the tax on behalf of the real owners of the accounts and later make indemnity claims.

The tax authority has been sending tax bills to the financial institutions holding borrowed-name accounts after asking them to pay the tax voluntarily in December last year. They are required to make the payment within 30 days upon receiving the bill.

By Song Sung-hoon and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]