세무조사의 개념에 관한 연구

The Framework Act on National Taxes(‘FANT’) provides the concept of ‘tax investigation’, while there exists the concept of ‘tax inquiry’ defined by each tax law. There is a tendency in Korea that both are considered as the concept of tax investigation in broad sense rather than the differences between the two concepts are acknowledged. However, it is reasonable to assume that the two concepts are not the same. In other words, a tax inquiry is a type of examination conducted by the tax authorities to ask for and look into documents and business records of taxpayers, etc. for purpose of tax administration. A tax investigation is a type of examination conducted by the tax authorities to examine comprehensive documents and records in taxpayers’ business premises for a long period of time by contacting taxpayer in person for purpose of deciding or correcting tax assessment. In Korean it has become obscured to distinguish between the two different concepts(tax investigation and tax inquiry). To resolve this difficulty, it seems necessary to amend the FANT to elaborate on the concept of tax investigation in a way to clearly distinguish between the two different concepts. If the definition of tax investigation were revised to distinguish it from the concept of tax inquiry, it would help define clearly the extent of legislative control of tax officials over examination and enhance the predictability in tax laws.