Appeals court upholds ruling in favor of late Lotte chair in gift tax dispute

▲ Late founder of retail giant Lotte Group Shin Kyuk-ho (Yonhap)

late Lotte chair-gift tax

Appeals court upholds ruling in favor of late Lotte chair in gift tax dispute

SEOUL, July 12 (Yonhap) -- The Seoul High Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court's ruling in favor of Shin Kyuk-ho, the late founder of retail giant Lotte Group, in a high-profile gift tax dispute against the tax authorities.

Shin filed the administrative suit against a district office head of the National Tax Service in 2018, seeking to revoke gift taxes of 212.6 billion won (US$161.8 million) imposed on him after the prosecution charged him with tax evasion, embezzlement and breach of trust two years earlier.

Prosecutors claimed Shin dodged the gift taxes in the course of selling off a 6.2 percent stake in Lotte Holdings Co., which he owned under a borrowed name, to a corporation owned by his common law wife, Seo Mi-kyung, in 2003.

Shin died of a chronic illness in January 2020 at age 99, a year after the Supreme Court finalized a three-year imprisonment and a fine of 3 billion won for him on the embezzlement and breach of trust charges.

Shin's children, including incumbent Lotte Group Chair Shin Dong-bin, have since inherited the suit.

In the first court ruling on the gift tax case, the Seoul Administrative Court ordered the district tax office head to revoke the gift taxes in December 2020, and the Seoul High Court confirmed the verdict Tuesday.

(END)

(C) Yonhap News Agency. All Rights Reserved