Tax changes sparked controversy in South Korea on Tuesday with doctors rejecting a new obligation to submit their income records to the government, which adopted a computerization policy to help reduce taxpayer's legwork.
The revised tax law requires all hospitals to submit records of patients' expenses to the National Tax Agency, which will make a database of the information and pay tax refunds to the individuals accordingly. So far, patients have had to visit hospitals to get their annual expense records when filing year-end tax forms.
The tax agency implemented the new scheme this year based on a revised tax law passed in December last year.
Doctors' organizations criticized the revision as a violation of privacy by handing over individuals' information to the national tax agency. A group of 23 doctors and patients filed a petition with the Constitutional Court on Monday, accusing the government of violating human rights.
"Our individual information as a whole will go to the computer network of the tax agency. In this world, when even the National Intelligence Service can't prevent information leaks and when Internet banking has errors, to relay our personal records to the tax agency is certainly a problem," said Kim Soo-young, a psychiatric doctor and director of the Korea Medical Association, an interest group for doctors.
The tax agency database will only display the patient's name and his or her medical expenses, and no hospital names or treatment records. But no database is safe from leaks, and patients with records that could harm their reputations, such as sexually transmitted diseases or abortions, may fall victim, Kim said.
To that claim, the tax agency assured that its computer network will be tightly controlled and that access will only be given to the person in question. Also, individuals who don't want to transfer their medical records can do so by registering at the Web site of the National Health Insurance Corporation and file their tax forms the previous way, the agency said. It pointed to the doctors' alleged tax evasion habits to explain their protest.
"Even though reporting medical expenses has nothing to do with protecting individual privacy, the reason that the doctors are refusing to do so is because they are concerned about their income that will be exposed," Han Seung-ryeol, an official of the tax agency in charge of the case, said.
He suggested that hospitals refusing to submit the report tended to be in the areas prone to tax evasion. Among total medical centers, 29 percent or 22,700 hospitals, refused to submit their patients' expense records. Dental offices (51 percent) and oriental hospitals (38 percent) constituted the majority of them, according to the tax agency.
Doctors, however, denounce such accusations as a "witch hunt" with no tangible proof. Few hospitals dwell in the tax shelter, as their income nowadays mostly comes through credit cards rather than cash and automatically gets reported to the tax agency.
They also argue that the new tax scheme has many loopholes.
Instead of making tax filing more convenient, the computerized system will discriminate against those who are not familiar with the device, such as the elderly or uneducated who can't check their records on the computer network themselves and have to ask someone else for help in viewing the files, thus risking exposure of their privacy.
If the tax agency proceeds with the new measure, the doctors will file another lawsuit against the agency for a right to disregard their tax paying duties.
Seoul, Dec. 12 (Yonhap News)
Tax changes spark doctors' protest over new obligation to transfer income records |
