Tax Accountant Exam's Top-Ranked Candidate Hires Lawyer Amid 'AI Smart Glasses Cheating' Allegations

"Will fully cooperate with procedures to establish the facts"
All four exam proctors: "We saw no suspicious behavior"

The top-ranked candidate in the 63rd Certified Tax Accountant Qualification Examination, who got only one of 160 questions wrong, has hired a lawyer amid suspicions of cheating using smart glasses.

On November 13, Lee Donho, managing attorney at Nova Law Firm, announced on social media that he was representing A, who is known by the nickname “Taxcat.” Lee said, “My client will fully cooperate with the procedures necessary to establish the facts of this matter.”

Smart glasses placed on an exam paper. The photo is for illustrative purposes and is not related to the specific content. Yonhap News Agency.

A scored 397.5 out of 400 on the first-stage exam, held last April. A got only one question wrong in financial management and earned perfect scores in Introduction to Tax Law, Introduction to Accounting, and Commercial Law. Introduction to Tax Law drew particular attention: among the 16,856 test-takers, the average score was just 30.18, and 74.21% failed to meet the minimum passing score. A also earned 663 out of 800 on the essay-based second-stage exam, a score far above the average for other candidates.

In a testimonial published in the tax-industry publication Daily NTN (Kukse Sinmun), A said, “After preparing for the exam for about two years, I passed both the first- and second-stage exams on my first attempt.”

After A’s overwhelming results became public, some test-takers raised the possibility that A had cheated using AI smart glasses.

On November 13, Kim Jaehwan, a tax accountant and lawyer who previously worked as an investigator at the National Tax Service, said on YouTube that he had answered 40 questions in Introduction to Tax Law and scored 37.5. “Even I, who have studied tax law for more than 10 years, got only 15 of the 40 questions right,” Kim said. “Getting 100 points would be like an athlete better than Usain Bolt running 100 meters in the 8-second range.” He also questioned A’s explanation that A had used the process of elimination to answer questions they did not know, saying, “That’s a method anyone uses in a multiple-choice exam.”

In a media interview on November 11, A categorically denied the allegation of using AI glasses. The Human Resources Development Service of Korea, which administered the exam, also said it had so far found no evidence supporting claims that A had cheated. All four exam proctors said they had not seen any suspicious behavior, and no irregularities were found in the grading materials for the first-stage exam. However, because there was no closed-circuit television (CCTV) in the exam room, it is difficult to verify what happened at the time through video footage.

The service has commissioned experts to conduct an additional review of A’s essay answers from the second-stage exam.

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