EX-PRESIDENT WINS TAX EXEMPTION SUIT

[Anchor Lead]

Former President Lee Myung-bak has won a suit seeking to get exempted from a tax payment of hundreds of millions of won. Lee was sentenced to 17 years in prison on corruption charges last October. He still has to pay nearly 20 billion won in fines and forfeit. His successor Park Geun-hye is also faced with a similar situation. Here is more about the fines and penalties the two disgraced former presidents have to clear up.

[Pkg]

Last February, former President Lee Myung-bak filed a complaint, seeking exemption from tax on profits he had gained from renting out his property. He claimed that he had not been notified of the required tax payment, since he was confined in a detention center. The Seoul Administrative Court has delivered a decision in his favor. While acknowledging the legitimacy of the taxation notification given to Lee, the bench ruled that the tax of 120 million won is null and void, since the legal taxation period was already over. However, the former president still has to pay nearly 20 billion won in fines and forfeit. Lee was ordered the monetary penalties--13 billion won in fines and nearly 5.8 billion won in forfeit--last October when he received the prison term of 17 years on charges of bribery and embezzlement. However, he failed to pay the fines to meet the deadline in early December last year. A day before the deadline expired, he submitted a plan to pay the fines on an installment basis over a period of multiple years. But prosecutors rejected his request, saying that the period exceeded the legal framework of six months. The prosecution began procedures to liquidate Lee's properties and put his house up for public sale last month. The court is now proceeding with an auction for the site of his factory in Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do Province. Another imprisoned former president Park Geun-hye has also failed to pay all of the fines imposed on her. The fines amount to more than 21 billion won. Prosecutors plan to collect the fines by liquidating her house and a check worth three billion won if she fails to meet the payment deadline. If their liquidated properties amount to less than the total fines, prosecutors will additionally liquidate their other remaining assets. If the amounts turn out to be insufficient to clear all fines, the two ex-presidents will then have to perform labor for up to three years.