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Actress Song Hye-kyo (OSEN) |
Actress Song Hye-kyo will attend the movie premiere of “My Brilliant Life” at the Wangsimni CGV in Seoul on Thursday as planned, despite public censure over her 2.5 billion won ($2.4 million) tax evasion fiasco.
“Song Hye-kyo will stick to the original interview with the press from Monday through Wednesday to promote the new film,” a local entertainment online media outlet reported on Wednesday, citing a source involved in the film.
The news came a day after the actress made a public apology for committing tax evasion, although she insisted that the violation was made by the accountant without her knowledge.
Song said she was unaware that her accountant had underreported her income taxes until the tax authority told her in 2012 that it could not acknowledge them due to a lack of documents on tax-deductible expenses.
Through her accountant, the actress reported 5.5 billion won ($5.4 million), or 92.3 percent, of 5.95 billion won as tax-deductible expenses without presenting the related expense documents when she filed her income taxes for three years, from 2009-2011.
But public criticism continued, largely because she was honored as a “model tax payer” in 2009, the year when the tax evasion occurred. Some media pointed out that the tax evasion may have been well calculated, considering the “perfect timing” of the crime. According to the local tax law, model tax payers are endowed certain tax-related privileges, such as waiving the regular tax probe for the next two years. Song’s tax evasion began soon after she won the recognition.
By Chung Joo-won (
joowonc@heraldcorp.com)
