While the amount of National tax arrears that the government has not been able to collect reached 100 trillion won, the national tax arrears of Ansan Tax Office alone occupies 2.2 trillion won and ranked third in cumulative national tax arrears by tax offices nationwide. Ansan Tax Office is the only non-Gangnam region to be included in the top 5 of tax arrears accumulation. The main reason for the 3^rd rank of Ansan Tax Office on national tax default is analyzed to be caused by the financial crisis of the companies inside the largest national industrial nationwide Banwol National Industrial Complex due to the prolonged Covid-19. [1]

Despite the fact that the Banwol National Industrial Complex (Ansan City, Gyeonggi Province) has just been newly reformed into a large-scale nationwide high-tech industrial innovation base with government supports aiming to be a backbone of domestic manufacturing after being selected through the public “Industrial Complex Reconstruction Project” competition jointly held by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in the early of 2021, companies in the Complex is now facing the said-above financial hardship[2]. In addition, it is unclear whether those financial hardships can be resolved in the near future since nearly half of the national tax arrears from the Ansan Tax Office last year were classified as having a low probability of collecting arrears.

Through the third disclosure of national tax statistics on the 29th of last month, the National Tax Service announced that the national accumulated tax arrears as of the end of June have amounted to 98.7367 trillion won. This amount is the first data released as “the amount of pure accumulated arrears” which excluded the duplicated arrears such as joint taxpayer and secondary taxpayers within the 5-year statute of limitations on national tax arrears collections (10-year statute of limitations on the national tax debt more than 500 million won).

One of the most notable is that the impact of the Banwol National Industrial Complex is not only on the national treasure but also on the operation of the related- industries. The consequences can be imagined by looking at the shut down of Hyundai Heavy Industries’ Gunsan Shipyard in 2017 which affected to Gunsan Plant and Gunssan National Industrial Complex[3]. However, in order to solve either the financial crisis of the Complex or the national tax arrears affairs, it may take bloody efforts and time. Whether or not the Nation has the budget to save up the Complex, whether either it is allowed to refinance the debts, loan from bank or trade debts, until recently, solutions have not yet been given.