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SM Entertainment to pay USD 18 million post tax investigation after suspicions of tax evasion
We recently learned that SM Entertainment has been ordered to pay up USD 18 million after the government placed suspicions of tax evasion.
The famed agency which is known to handle client portfolios of numerous South Korean stars--SM Entertainment was reportedly ordered to pay up USD 18 million after an alleged tax investigation by the National Tax Service Seoul Regional Tax Office, Soompi reported.
While the publication reports that the Seoul Regional Tax Office had carried out a tax investigation of SM and the company’s executive producer Lee Soo Man, they were just looking for irregularities at the time. Now, after suspicions of tax evasion, Soompi reported that SM had an outflow of company capital in Lee Soo Man’s corporate transactions. The company has responded by saying it was a regular tax investigation that began last September and it was the company’s first in six years. They stated, “We earnestly took part and are awaiting the results.”
But today, the publication reported that SM Entertainment had been ordered to pay an additional collection amount of 20.2 billion won following the tax investigation. The amount sums up to the company’s 3.19 percent of capital. After the news broke, SM Entertainment quickly issued a statement and said: “After we receive the tax notice, we plan to pay the additional collection amount before the deadline of the end of March, and we plan to carry out an appeal process after that.”
This is not the first time that the company has been under the government’s radar, SM underwent tax investigations in 2009 and 2014, as a result, to which the company was ordered to pay an additional USD 9.1 million in corporate taxes after the investigation in 2014.
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