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Twelve Korean tax holdouts ranked behind Kwon Hyuk owed 1.95 trillion won when named

Kwon Hyuk, the Sido Group chairman known as Korea's shipping king, has agreed to pay about 400 billion won in back taxes he avoided for 15 years. The National Tax Service is holding the deal up as an example to the 12 people ranked behind him on its delinquent list, who owed about 1.95 trillion won combined when named.

The Investor · Invest desk

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Photograph accompanying Twelve Korean tax holdouts ranked behind Kwon Hyuk owed 1.95 trillion won when named
Photo: en.sedaily.com

What happened

  • Kwon was named in the December disclosure round with 393.8 billion won in unpaid comprehensive income tax and other levies, the largest individual balance in that round.
  • That round added 11,009 names, 6,848 individuals and 4,161 corporations, the first year the National Tax Service's new disclosures passed 10,000.
  • Lee Hak-kyun, the largest delinquent on the cumulative list after Kwon, was added in 2023 over 16 unpaid bills for 2017 that fell due at the end of December 2020.
  • The agency plans to make its large-scale delinquency task force permanent and to set up teams linking tax audits with delinquency tracking at regional investigation bureaus.

Why it matters

  • constraint A payment the size of Kwon's covers about a fifth of what the 12 next-largest holdouts owed when named, so voluntary settlement only changes the list's total if it happens about five more times.
  • decision Large delinquents who hide assets now have to choose between a negotiated payment like Kwon's and an agency that has promised more collection pressure on exactly that conduct.
  • precedent Kwon's agreement gives the National Tax Service a named 400-billion-won case to cite whenever it asks another large delinquent to settle voluntarily.

Five of the 12 individuals ranked behind Kwon are listed in gambling, betting or recreation services [19]. The three in gambling and betting, Lim Tae-kyu, Hong Young-chul and Lee Sung-rok, account for about 454.7 billion won between them [17]. The eighth-largest balance, 132.957 billion won, belongs to Kim Hyun-kyu, whom the list shows running a BHC fried chicken branch in the Hongdae-Seogyo area of Seoul [6]. Choi Soon-young, at 107.316 billion won, is the one former group chairman among them, from Shindongah Group [7][20].

Public naming has already been tried on the biggest of these debts. Lee Hak-kyun's 302.93 billion won was still on the list at the end of last year [2]. Lee Hyun-seok, trading as "Panda," and Kim Ki-young were named for about 213 billion won each, over 13 unpaid bills apiece for the same 2017 tax year, due by the end of April 2022 [4].

Commissioner Lim Kwang-hyun praised Kwon's willingness to pay at a briefing on the 7th [12]. "I hope this case has a positive influence and becomes an occasion for delinquents to pay their taxes voluntarily before compulsory collection," he said [11]. The Seoul Economic Daily report does not say when Kwon will pay or whether the sum comes in instalments.

Most newly named delinquents owe far less. Of the individuals added in December, 78.1% owed between 200 million and 500 million won, and 57.5% lived in greater Seoul [10]. Kwon's 393.8 billion won equals about 788 debts at the top of that band [18].

Another of the 12 could settle, and the public list would then work the way Lim hopes. The agency's investigators could instead recover money by force from people who would not settle, and Kwon's agreement would stay a one-off. Or nothing moves, and the same names carry into the next round. Ryu Chung-sun, the agency's assistant commissioner for international taxation, described the second path. "No matter where in the world a delinquent hides assets, we will track them to the end and collect what is owed," he said [14].

We think the voluntary route will work, where it works at all, on former group chairmen such as Choi, and rarely on the gambling, betting and recreation operators [7][19]. The biggest balances behind Kwon have stayed on the list after naming [2]. Kwon himself is the counter-case: the largest name on the list did agree to pay [1][9]. An agreement from Lee Hak-kyun, or from any of the three gambling operators, before the next disclosure round would show we have it wrong.

What to watch

  • Whether the National Tax Service publishes recovery figures for the permanent task force and the new audit-and-tracking teams, such as the Seoul Regional Tax Office's Investigation Bureau 4.
  • The size of the next December disclosure round, and whether any newly named individual owes more than 100 billion won.

Clarity's read

What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Insufficient
Hype gap+12
Incentives45
Confidence60
Why these scores

Claim ledger

Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.

  1. [1]

    Kwon Hyuk, chairman of Sido Group and known as South Korea's "shipping king," has agreed to pay about 400 billion won ($280 million) in back taxes he has avoided for 15 years.

    ReportedSupportedSource: The Seoul Economic DailyView cited source
  2. [2]

    A Seoul Economic Daily analysis of the National Tax Service's cumulative disclosure list from October 2004 through the end of last year found that, excluding Kwon, the individual with the largest unpaid amount at disclosure was Lee Hak-kyun, in the information and communications industry, at 302.93 billion won. The figures cover delinquents who have not since been removed from the list through payment or other reasons.

    ReportedSupportedSource: The Seoul Economic Daily analysis of NTS disclosure listView cited source
  3. [3]

    Lee Hak-kyun was added to the list in 2023 after failing to pay 16 tax bills, including comprehensive income tax, for 2017; the payment deadline is listed as the end of December 2020.

    ReportedSupportedSource: The Seoul Economic Daily analysis of NTS disclosure listView cited source

Sources

1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.

  1. en.sedaily.com

    1 article · October 9, 2026

    Shipping Tycoon to Pay 400 Billion Won in Back Taxes; Who Is Next?

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