Suspicions surrounding the National Tax Service (NTS) from around the time Lee administration took office are snowballing. Ahn Won-ku, former NTS bureau director, who was arrested on Nov. 20, has made stunning admissions through his attorney.

The background to the way in which former NTS head Han Sang-yool was able to secure his position is full of suspicions. Ahn is saying that early last year, he met with President Lee Myung-bak’s older brother, Grand National Party Lawmaker Lee Sang-deuk, and pleaded with him to let Han continue in his job, saying his boss was read to be loyal to the new administration. He also claimed that in order to secure his job, Han was willing to give a powerful figure attached to the winner of the presidential election some 1 billion Won immediately following the election. Han did in fact keep in his position, and was not even investigated by prosecutors after allegations surfaced of tax corruption.

Han is then said to have launched a tax probe of former Taekwang Industrial Chairman Park Yeon-cha and asked Ahn to assist him in investigating Taekwang’s operations in Vietnam. One cannot help but ask why the head of the NTS was so concerned about a tax probe into a single provincial company. At the time, the Fourth Investigation Bureau of the NTS’s Seoul office traveled to Busan to conduct their investigation, amid suspicions at the time being that they were conducting a targeted investigation aimed at late President Roh Moo-hyun. One cannot help but suspect that some dealing and collusion was occuring. If these suspicions are true, guilty parties must take both political responsibility and legal responsibility for misuse of authority.

There are also major suspicions that government officials tried to cover up doubts surrounding President Lee in an organized fashion. Lawyers say that Ahn discovered a document during an audit of POSCO Engineering and Construction between the fall of 2007 and March 2008 that said that land in Seoul’s Dogok-dong neighborhood belonged to then-GNP presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak. If this is true, it could question the ethics of the president to the very roots. It is not yet known if the NTS destroyed the document. What appears clear is that in order to block reports or leaks of the document, the NTS pressured Ahn, even mentioning Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) in their talks. It also smells suspicious that Ahn just so happened to be arrested on the day he decided to meet with the opposition party. It is also suspicious that prosecutors are delaying an active investigation, failing to subpoena or demand the extradition of former NTS head Han, a key figure in all of the suspicions.

Prosecutors must thoroughly get to the bottom of the suspicions. This is not the time to cut the tail off and cover things up as if it were a matter of personal tax corruption by Ahn. If prosecutors are going to boldly investigate, they must first extradite Han, who is now in the U.S.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]