Punish Corrupt Taxmen

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Michael Breen

Punish Corrupt Taxmen

Posted : 2009-11-26 17:54

Updated : 2009-11-26 17:54

By Michael Breen

Prosecutors last week arrested a senior National Tax Service director, Ahn Won-goo, who they allege got businessmen seeking light tax audits to buy paintings from his wife's art gallery.

The arrest of yet another top tax official on corruption charges is a reminder why, behind the appearance of nationalistic unity, Korea is such a fractious society and public trust in government and leadership is so low.

If you wonder how this works, consider the other charge against Ahn. Prosecutors claim that, in 2007, he gave 300 million won to a close aide of then-presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak on behalf of his boss, then-NTS chief Han Sang-ryule.

It's long been a tradition in some places in Korea that you have to pay your boss for promotion. Accordingly, this money was a bribe for the aide to ask Lee, who was clearly going to win the election and become president, to keep Han on as the top tax collector.

Presumably, Han and Ahn loved serving the people and felt that the country would suffer if it could no longer benefit from their experience and wisdom. But, as we all know, it's hard for other people to see our depths and importance and easy for them to make mistakes and put their own cronies in our place.

Han and Ahn must have thought that using public money to encourage the president to think more deeply was for the greater public good, and that God, who is a personal God, agreed.

But Satan is always out there, whipping up opposition. Han was ousted earlier, connected to a similar case involving his predecessor as NTS boss, Jeon Goon-pyo, who was found guilty of receiving bribes from a junior tax official in return for promotion.

Why the pattern? In his case, Jeon, and stop me if you're getting confused, was ordered to pay the money back and was given a three-and-a-half-year sentence. Take time off for good behavior and you can see the risk-reward calculation made by so many people tasked with handling our money. For every person caught and lightly sentenced, how many have gotten away. Proof to them of course, that there is a God.

Well, maybe tax bosses run a higher risk of getting caught. Of the 17 former NTS chiefs, eight were found guilty of bribery.

Now, here's a question. Is this sorry line-up the result of temptation? In other words, do people at the top who have the key to the secret room where the coins we have donated in taxes are heaped, just get tempted to hose it into their own accounts?

Trick question. The point I'm making here is that in this model, the good and capable are not tempted when they reach the top. They never get to the top. In a system where you can get away with bribing your boss for promotion, it is the scum who rise.

And who are these scums? For every few well-meaning and honorable officials, it seems, there is one for whom morality is relative and power is there to be abused, and the public purse, when available to him or her, to be dipped into for personal gain.

It may be one in three or one in 100. We do not know. But in the public perception, the National Tax Service runs a close second to the prosecutor's office for being the least trusted institution in the country.

Both agencies once served as the pit bulls of the Blue House and were unleashed on political opponents. Now they roam untethered, free to pick their own victims, including, of course, the officials, politicians, scholars, civic groups and journalists who should keep an eye on them on our behalf. It's time we fought back.

Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.