Legal validity of notice of change in income without advance notice of taxation
Authors:   Legal Research Institute of Chonnam National University, Kil Yong-Won 
Published: August 2022

The pre-deliberation review system was introduced through the revision of the National Tax Basic Law on August 31, 1999. It is a procedure designed to improve the effectiveness of taxpayers' rights relief by notifying taxpayers in advance of taxation. Currently, the system is undergoing an increasing revitalization process, which is partly an active remedy for rights, but some point out that it is either an abuse of tax investigation or a lack of thoroughness.
In this regard, according to established Supreme Court precedents, if a taxpayer is not given the opportunity to examine pre-tax eligibility before the imposition, the imposition violates the taxpayer's procedural rights and is invalid because the procedural defects are serious and obvious. This is in line with recent judicial precedents emphasizing procedural legality of tax imposition. However, the Supreme Court's ruling (2020Du52689), which violates the purpose of such judicial precedents, is causing confusion for taxpayers.
This case is a case in which the tax authorities should have given tax notices to corporations withholding tax before giving notice of changes in income, but failed to give the corporations withholding tax an opportunity to examine their pre-tax eligibility. In conclusion, the Supreme Court ruled that the notice of change in income amount was not subject to tax notice. The ruling is worth a considerable amount because it includes issues related to the principle of strict interpretation and the relationship between purposeful interpretation as a way of interpreting tax laws, including the principle of legal procedures under the Constitution. In particular, the discussion of literally interpretation and teleological interpretations and their limitations in the interpretation of tax laws and regulations has been dealt with quite meaningfully in Japan, and is continuously discussed in the Supreme Court's.
Since the tax law is a compulsory law and an infringement code, a faithful interpretation of the law is the best way to interpret it in accorded with the principle of strict interpretation. However, if multiple interpretations remain as a result of the interpretation, it is necessary to uniquely determine the meaning and contents of the tax law by taking into account the purpose and purpose of the tax law, the value of the tax legislator. Given that tax legalism is the manifestation of democratic principles in the field of tax law, legitimacy under tax legalism is the value judgment of the tax legislator above all else, and those who interpret it should be respected as much as possible. It is necessary to reconsider the legislator's intentions on the pre-deliberation review system and the advance notice of taxation.
In the end, what we need to focus on now is what kind of law application in specific cases is theoretically acceptable through expansion and inference interpretation. Comparative legal considerations can be one way to deal with this. The role of the theory is to present the legislative theory, but also to provide a more rational perspective to the trial practice through interpretive theory. From this point of view, I believe that discussions on how to interpret tax laws should be made more active.