SOUTH KOREA LOOKS AT HANJIN’S TAXES

SOUTH KOREA LOOKS AT HANJIN’S TAXES

   The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office in Seoul, South Korea, has
summoned the founder and honorary chairman of the Hanjin Group, 79-year-old Cho Choong-hoon, for questioning about alleged tax evasion among the group’s subsidiaries.
   The Hanjin Group is South Korea’s sixth-ranked chaebol, a power bloc of diverse but intertwined businesses. A few days ago, Lee Ik-chi, the head of another chaebol, Hyundai Securities, received a two-year prison term for violations of stock trading.
   The country’s tax office had imposed a $484 million penalty and filed a
charge of tax evasion against the Cho family, Korean Air and Hanjin
Shipping.
   The elder Cho’s two sons, Cho Yang-ho, chairman of Korean Air Lines, part of the Hanjin Group, and Cho Su-ho, president of Hanjin Shipping, had been called in for interrogation ahead of their father.