Honey Lee Confirmed to Have Paid 6 Billion Won in Back Taxes to the Government After Routine Audit
Well this is a doozy and from one of the most loved K-actresses in the industry. This week kicked off with K-ent reporting that top actress Honey Lee recently was found to have underreported her taxes after the government undertook an irregular tax audit of agency Saram Entertainment, and in the process found that she owed 6 billion won (about $4.1M USD) in back taxes. She has paid it promptly and the SK government tax office has characterized this as an unintentional underpayment (as opposed to intentional tax evasion). In the past K-netizens have been very harsh on any celeb caught owing back taxes as it’s considered a moral failing and an ethical lacking: top celebs who have been castigated in public for owing unpaid tax amounts include Song Hye Kyo for 3.5 billion won, Kwon Sang Woo for 1 billion won, and Park Hee Soon for 800 million won, but reportedly Honey Lee’s amount is the highest ever for a celeb’s owed unpaid taxes. Her side has stated she cooperated, this was deemed not intentional was due to record keeping and reconciliation mistakes between her and her agency, and she has paid the full amount promptly.
And….the celebrity witch hunt continues….
You’d think that S. Korea must be a hellish place to live with the constant picking on celebrities. They never learn… always in search of a new victim….
Celebrity witch hunt? Rich should be hunted for not paying taxes. Normal people r jailed for this. Kim saw roun could’ve killed someone. The lashings were necessary
I hope you too are treated with the same empathy you treat others.
The law and judicial system are there for a reason. If there are crimes committed, they will go after the parties concerned. There is no need for the media and online keyboard warriors to play jungle justice, online rumor mongering and executioner. No sooner than the rumor mill gets rid of one celebrity, they start looking for the next victim. It’s quite shameful.
U get treated like this. Rich steal money by paying not taxes. Kim saw ron drank like a drunkard and when u r celeb. It is part n parcel of game bcoz people pay money for u. I m decent enough human to pay taxes and not kill people by drinking. Blind fans like u r reason rich people get away with things
Your victim card won’t work here. Anyone who have sympathy for tax evaders, drunkyardfrivers who r potential risk to people will not have my empathy. If u r celebrity. U should have conduct. Now go cry this victim card somewhere..cult type fans mentality
On the scale of celebrity wrongdoings, this is quite low in severity. Moreover, if the tax office is not calling it evasion, then it’s simply not.
In other unrelated but relevant news, Lee Honey and Cha Seung Won are both cast in the NHK drama alongside GY/SHK. It’s a powerhouse cast with a whopping 75 billion won budget and I wasn’t as excited initially, but I’m starting to be!
I love Cha Seung Won. Very excited to see him in this drama with such a strong cast and production crew. The only actor I’m not excited for is Seolhyun but according to people who watched ‘Light Shop’ her acting has approved a lot so I will give her a chance.
She’s definitely gotten better if you’re comparing her to her Orange Marmalade days lol. Nothing ground breaking but definitely not distracting. I liked her in Light Shop, she was pretty decent.
and I love love love CWS. Both as an actor and in real life. He’s hilarious in all his varieties but I’m also pumped to see him with this cast.
She’s safe. Just wondering can any celeb appeal the tax audit? Or will they be crucified as unpatriotic even if they are exercising a right?
Woah that is a lot of money! This is news because it is such a high amount but even though it’s not a good look I don’t think this will cancel her as unintentional underpayment isn’t the same as deliberate tax evasion. Even regular people on normal wages can accidentally underpay taxes.
I wondered why she was working non-stop so soon after having her baby in 2022 but it looks like the audit was completed in second quarter of 2022 so she had to get back to making money ASAP.
It was the govt tax office that declared it an unintentional underpayment instead of some company PR person, so hopefully that helps. And she paid right away instead of trying to argue.
Clearly a genuine oversight. A lot of performers leave their finances to their agents and managers to deal with because they are hopeless with maths, forms etc. Being a successful actress doesn’t mean you are also an ace accountant. In fact, many actors freely admit that they became actors because they were hopeless at ordinary office based jobs and didn’t have the strength for manual labour. Many thanks actors and musicians have been left bankrupt after their accountants have embezzled all the money. You wonder how anyone can miss billions of won, but when you don’t actually know how much money you’re getting, you don’t know how much you’re missing either.
Those who have been quick to condemn celebrities for their lack of accountancy skills are being willfully harsh, even malignantly so. I trust my wife with all our money, I haven’t a clue what we have, where it is, how much anything costs and so on, because I’m not only hopeless with money and maths, it sends me into a panic. For those who condemn Honey Lee and anyone else like her, need to be honest with themselves and imagine how they would cope with self employment and having to do their own income and tax reportage. Whether they admit it or not, I bet most of them couldn’t do it.
Love Honey Lee. I don’t know why everyone assumes that celebrities are also ace accountants. Most of them can’t even do the simplest office job, that’s one reason why they act. So many of them get defrauded by their accountants, who run off with their money, because they have no idea how much they earn and therefore also how much tax they should be paying. Who knows how to work out taxes on their income? I don’t. And my wife does ask the money stuff. I haven’t a clue how much we have. Those criticizing celebrities like Honey Lee need to ask themselves how good they would be at working out their own taxes. Those just being hateful and malignant should get treatment straight away.