Special Investigation Team Indicts President Manhee Lee of Shincheonji on Additional 7.5 Billion Won Tax Evasion Charges
Alleged Concealment of Profits Through Operation of Stores Under Followers' Names
Manhee Lee, President of Shincheonji, who was previously detained and indicted on charges of orchestrating the mass registration of Shincheonji believers as People Power Party members, has been additionally indicted for tax evasion totaling approximately 7.5 billion won.
The Special Joint Anti-Corruption Investigation Team for Religious and Political Collusion announced on July 24 that President Lee and Jeong, a former business division head of Shincheonji, were indicted on charges of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (tax evasion). The Shincheonji organization itself was also referred to trial for allegedly violating the Punishment of Tax Offenses Act.
From 2016 to 2020, President Lee and others are suspected of concealing business income by disguising local church convenience stores under the names of followers and maintaining double accounting books, thereby evading 7.57 billion won in corporate and value-added taxes.
Previously, the Seoul Regional Tax Office had levied 12.2 billion won in corporate taxes and additional value-added taxes on Shincheonji for the business years 2012 to 2019, and reported President Lee and others to the prosecution. The Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office, which investigated the case at that time, declined to prosecute President Lee and others in October 2021.
Subsequently, the special investigation team took over the case, reopened the investigation, and determined that tax evasion charges were substantiated. They included the aspects not barred by the statute of limitations in the current indictment.
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The investigation team is also probing suspicions that President Lee attempted to lobby political circles through Heeja Lee, President of Geunuhoe, in order to quash tax audits and prosecutorial investigations. Shincheonji filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the tax authority’s imposition of corporate and other taxes, but the court dismissed their claim.
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