Chapter 286
Hamilton opened his eyes wider at that.
He even felt it strange that he found it after a yearlong search.
“Are you sure they have found tax evasion of Hyunwoo’s companies? We need specific evidence that they intentionally evaded taxes.”
“I’m not so sure whether they intentionally did it or not. But there is no doubt about their tax evasion.”
“How much is their additional tax amount?”
“What I confirmed is not that much. Including the value-added tax, it’s about 600 million at most.”
In Hamilton’s eyes, that was not big enough.
But the amount itself was not important. What was important was the company image. If the allegation on their tax evasion proved true, he was going to damage the image of KOVE DREAM by actively promoting the active media coverage of it.
He needed to make the matter of Hyunwoo’s tax evasion much worse than now.
“Got it. Nice job!”
***
Assemblyman Jungmin Hwang, the new big shot of the ruling party, had a drinking party with some lawmakers who followed him.
While having a good dinner, he mentioned Hyunwoo. As Hyunwoo was the talk of the town because of the enormous donation of his wealth to society these days, Hwang naturally changed the topic to him.
But they were not interested in Hyunwoo’s commendable donation. Rather they expressed complaints against him.
“Let me talk about Hyunwoo Jang. I know he’s doing lots of good things, but I just don’t know why I feel resentful towards him. Don’t you think he has to do it through politicians?”
“Right. Basically he is sending the message that he can’t trust politicians. Does he think we politicians are diverting political funds for some other purposes?”
“I think we need to teach him a hard lesson. How dare he avoid us when his companies are making such a huge amount of money thanks to our help? I don’t think we should give him a pass this time.”
As if he saw eye to eye with them, Hwang nodded.
But they couldn’t touch him thoughtlessly because he was gaining wide popularity for his generous donations.
They needed to make a strong case against him.
At that moment, Hwang got a welcome call. The caller was the representative of the Korea branch of OneStar, which took over Bando Oil four years ago.
“Congressman, we need a special audit of Hyunwoo’s companies.”
“Which audit?”
“We have found some illegal act in their business practices.”
Hwang’s face brightened momentarily.
“Are you sure? Which part?”
***
“Wow, the air is so fresh here!”
Climbing the hillside, Yu Zuung took a deep breath and looked down on the beautiful landscape.
Hyunwoo felt happy, too, and was there with her for a morning workout.
“It’s really good that I moved to Sosan.”
“You bet. I didn’t know how much I liked this place like this. I’m happy.”
Hyunwoo was happy, too.
Before he got married, he found it difficult to be with her even a couple of times per week, but he could be with her from the moment he came back home from work until he reported to work the next morning.
It was already 9 am. Originally, Hyunwoo and Yu Zuung used to go to sleep and get up early, but they switched their living patterns to the opposite. They went to sleep and got up late.
It was inevitable because both often came back home after midnight because of their tight schedules.
A housekeeper prepared breakfast for them.
After breakfast, they were busy taking care of various business schedules until they went back home. Hyunwoo had to meet many people or stop by his companies while Yu Zuung had to appear on TV shows.
Hyunwoo headed for STM Research Center in Tapgokri, his favorite place these days.
He paid all of his attention to his father’s research on the core material compatible with Toughtex.
Duyoung was studying the contraction of Toughtex. To be precise, he was looking for a core material that perfectly matched the Toughtex in contraction as the voltage changed.
He had been doing research on it for the past three years, but he hadn’t made any tangible progress.
Of course, he found materials whose contraction ratio was similar. It was carbon nanotubes that Hyunwoo originally thought of. The contraction ratio of Toughtex extracted from kerosene and that of carbon nanotubes was almost identical.
But ‘almost identical’ suggested there was a slight error.
Duyoung continued to fail in his experiments because of this slight error. To make the type of product that Hyunwoo wanted, it needed durability to endure tens of millions of experiments, but the carbon nanotubes were often damaged by this slight error.
Now, Duyoung said he found the method to reduce that slight error. Of course, it can’t be said to be a complete success until Duyoung found the perfect solution, but it had great potential.
Duyoung was stuck in his research room from early in the morning. He even put a memo ‘Never Disturb Me!’ on the door.
In the meantime, Sonjong Kim called Hyunwoo.
She gave him some surprising news.
“Sir, we received a notice about tax investigation from the National Tax Services.”
“Tax investigation? We received it two years ago, didn’t we?”
“They say this is not regular but an ad-hoc tax audit.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I hear that somebody tipped them off on us evading taxes.”
“Tip on evading taxes?”
Hyunwoo could not understand. How could he evade taxes?
In fact, Hyunwoo made lots of efforts to have staff that could ensure that there were no tax issues. That’s why he hired former tax officials to minimize account errors and did regular self-tax audits.
But there had never been any tax issue thanks to Hyunwoo’s dedicated efforts.
Hyunwoo made a bitter smile.
Obviously, there must be someone who has tipped them off with malicious intent. Was it perhaps that congressman I met the other day?
That was a real possibility.
But Hyunwoo was honorable. No matter how thoroughly they tried to investigate Hyunwoo’s tax issue, they would not find one.
Even if they did find one, he had no big problem because he could fix it if ordered, and pay the unpaid taxes if any.
Several days after they received the notice, the government’s tax audit team stormed KOVE DREAM for the tax investigation.
Hyunwoo felt they would finish the investigation quickly as it was ad-hoc, not a regular investigation. But they didn’t. They did an intensive investigation for 15 days to the point that KOVE DREAM’s normal operation we’re disturbed.
After they were done with KOVE DREAM, they moved on to STM and Ani & Funny for the tax investigation was as intensive as KOVE DREAM.
Typically, tax investigations were not that intensive. So, in the case of their tax investigation of Hyunwoo’s companies, it was obvious that they did it to harass him.
But the results of the investigation were the same as last time.
No tax issues were found.
And then shortly after that, Hyunwoo had a call from the National Customs Office.
“We received the tip-off that KOVE DREAM evaded taxes. We’re going to conduct a tax audit on your companies sooner or later.”
“You should have done it simultaneously when National Tax Services did the tax investigation. Why are you giving us a hard time like this?”
KOVE DREAM’s director Sonjong Kim asked the official in an irritated voice.
Advisor Hwasik Kang stopped her,
“Hey, stop it. We’re going to be on their blacklist if you keep arguing with them. Just stay silent.”
Sonjong knew why they were picking on Hyunwoo’s companies for tax investigation.
It was because Hyunwoo avoided politicians too much.
In fact, she was upset about it. The only defect of her boss was that he didn’t maintain any smooth relationships with politicians.
“Hyunwoo has lots of money. Why is he trying to go his own way?”
Hwasik just smiled at that.
Several days later, the corporate tax audit team of the National Customs Office visited KOVE DREAM. They searched every nook and corner of the office to find any material on tax evasion.
Sonjong made a mockery of them, though. Actually, they did the same thing three years ago but found nothing suspicious.
She thought they would return empty-handed this time, too.
But they didn’t
As if he found something, the manager of the audit team gathered tax officials and began to ask. They came out of the meeting with tax officials with a grimace.
Sonjong sensed something grave. She called into her office those who met with the tax officials.
“What’s wrong? What did they ask?”
“Well, they said we dropped EBS from the payable taxes.”
She tilted her head to one side and asked.
“What is EBS?”
“It’s emergency fuel extra charge. I heard it for the first time today.”
“What the heck is this?” she asked as if she was confused.
She instantly googled it.
A little later advisor Hwasik Kang had a session with the tax audit team and came into Sonjong’s office.
She felt he didn’t look good. Obviously, they must have found something to find fault with KOVE.
“What happened?”
“They argued we dropped EBS.”
She let out a sigh, saying “I didn’t know EBS existed.”
Hwasik Kang also looked depressed. Though he worked for 30 years as a tax official, he was not aware of EBS.
But that was not a big problem from Hyunwoo’s point of view.
Even the additional tax payment as a result of the tax evasion related to EBS was not a problem, either.
Quickly coming to her senses, Sonjong began to cope with the issue. First of all, she asked a tax accountant to find out how much KOVE owed to the government in additional taxes.
As all the necessary information was stored on the computer, the accountant quickly came up with the exact amount.
“Value-added taxes(VAT) are 600 million won, plus 90 million won in additional taxes.”
Sonjong double-checked with the number. It was correct.
In that case, KOVE would have to pay almost 700 million won in overdue taxes but would be refunded 600 million won.
But advisor Hwasik shook his head with a serious look, “You didn’t know the VAT law was changed. We can’t receive the refund of 600 million won.”
Sonjong’s eyes popped up once again.
“Really? What are you talking about? Can’t we receive the refund?”
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