Surprise Crackdown on Vehicles with Unpaid Taxes and Fines... License Plates to Be Seized

Seoul Mobilizes Over 180 Personnel From City and District Offices
Citywide Crackdown at Tollgates and Across Seoul
On-the-spot Payment Encouraged... License Plate Seizure and Vehicle Impoundment for Delinquent Vehicles

Seoul City will launch a large-scale crackdown on vehicles with habitual tax delinquencies. If payment is not made even after being caught, the city will either seize the license plate or tow the vehicle.

On June 9, Seoul City announced that it will conduct a joint crackdown on delinquent vehicles together with the 25 district offices, the National Police Agency, and Korea Expressway Corporation.

Joint tollgate crackdown site by Seoul City targeting habitual tax evaders. Seoul City

The crackdown will take place both at fixed checkpoints on tollgates at Seoul's entry points and through mobile patrols throughout the city. About 180 personnel from the four organizations—Seoul City, district offices, police, and the Korea Expressway Corporation—will participate, deploying 40 vehicles, including those equipped with license plate readers.

The targets include vehicles that have failed to pay automobile taxes more than twice, vehicles with speed or signal violation fines exceeding 300,000 won, and vehicles that have habitually evaded highway tolls more than 20 times.

As of April, out of the approximately 3.16 million vehicles registered in Seoul, 160,000 had overdue automobile taxes, with total unpaid taxes amounting to 39.1 billion won. There are about 4,300 vehicles with outstanding bus-only lane violation fines, totaling 3.4 billion won, while cumulative unpaid traffic fines stood at 192.5 billion won as of the end of last year. Unpaid highway tolls over the past five years reached 29.1 billion won.

If a delinquent vehicle is caught during the crackdown, Seoul City will first encourage payment, but if payment is not made, the license plate will be seized or the vehicle will be towed on the spot. For vehicles with large or habitual delinquencies, forced towing and public auction will also be carried out. Park Kyunghwan, Director of the Finance Bureau at Seoul City, said, "We will actively collect overdue taxes to ensure that citizens who pay their taxes diligently do not feel relatively disadvantaged."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.