The government has submitted ratification bills for parliament to approve information sharing deals with two tax haven countries to intensify its crackdown on offshore tax evasion, government sources said Friday.
The government recently submitted the bills for a National Assembly session scheduled for next month to ratify the deals it signed with the Bahamas and Vanuatu, according to the sources.
Under the deals, the government will be able to request from them such information as business registration, business ownership, accounting and financial transactions related to its nationals.
As of April, South Korea had signed such contracts with 17 tax havens. Of them, only the deals with the Cook Islands and Marshall Islands went into effect.
The move came after an independent group of journalists earlier disclosed the names of high-profile business people and their families who have allegedly set up paper companies in the Cook Islands and the British Virgin Islands to conceal secretive money or avoid paying taxes.
The list is based on data that the organization analyzed jointly with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. There are reportedly 245 Korean nationals on the list and the journalist group will unveil their names after completing the fact-checking process.
The government earlier revised a law in March that makes such tax information-sharing deals take effect without parliamentary approval. The deals with the Bahamas and Vanuatu were signed before the law revision. (Yonhap News)
