Terra's Do Kwon Denies Any Tax Evasion Attempt on Twitter After South Korea Authorities File Lawsuit

South Korean tax authorities found Terra’s parent firms, guilty of dodging corporation and income tax last week.

By Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee | Updated: 23 May 2022 17:52 IST

Terra's Do Kwon Denies Any Tax Evasion Attempt on Twitter After South Korea Authorities File Lawsuit

Photo Credit: YouTube/ Terra

Do Kwon has refuted allegations that he has unfulfilled tax obligations in Korea

Highlights

Terraform Labs is under investigation by Korean tax authorities
The CEO has been under fire since the network’s demise
Do Kwon claims to have moved to Singapore in December last year

Days after news of a lawsuit being filed in South Korea against Terra on charges of tax evasion, Do Kwon, the CEO of Terraform Labs has stated on Twitter that the closure of two of the firm's offices in Busan and Seoul was just coincidental and had nothing to do with the ongoing investigation from national tax authorities. Kwon who hasn't been very active on the microblogging platform since the UST, LUNA crash on May 13 clarified that his decision to move to Singapore had no connection to the ongoing investigation and that he's been in Singapore since December 2021.

Terraform Labs is the core development team working on the Terra blockchain whose native assets, LUNA and UST stablecoin, recently collapsed after a bank run that wiped out billions of dollars of value.

A local news media report last week suggested that authorities in Korea were investigating Kwon and Terraform Labs for more than $78 million (roughly Rs. 604 crore) in unpaid corporate taxes.

[Sponsored] Samsung Galaxy S24: The Ultimate Camera Phone With Smarter On-Device AI

Investigations into Terraform Labs first began in June 2021. The investigation revealed that the company was registered in the Virgin Islands and Singapore. Following the investigations, the Terra subsidiary in the Virgin Islands was fined $3.6 million (roughly Rs. 28 crore) in income tax and $34.7 million (roughly Rs. 269 crore) in corporate tax by October.

I've been in Singapore since last December - this is a personal decision and has long been planned. I've been open about being located in Singapore across multiple interviews and podcasts

Shutting down a company just takes some time, and timing is purely coincidental
— Do Kwon ???? (@stablekwon) May 21, 2022

The decision is reported to have made Kwon unhappy with crypto taxation in the country and according to the report by Naver news, Kwon tried to liquidate Terra's domestic operations just before the LUNA crash. The financial watchdog allegedly busted Terra Labs during the attempt to transfer tokens to Luna Foundation Group in Singapore.

We have no outstanding tax liabilities in Korea

The NTS did conduct a tax audit across all the major crypto cos with a presence in Korea and applied Korean tax code to foreign mother companies, and every company ended up paying as a result - we paid in full

Not unique to TFL
— Do Kwon ???? (@stablekwon) May 21, 2022

Understand why this would be interesting to look at for gossip but not sure if its relevant to anything thats going on

Korean govt needed money to shore up covid spending, creatively charged millions from crypto companies, and we paid our share in full - all there is to it
— Do Kwon ???? (@stablekwon) May 21, 2022

When questioned on Twitter by FatMan, an anonymous Terra analyst and commentator, about the accuracy of the reports, Kwon responded.

BTC, ETH, DOGE, SHIB Added Among 12 Crypto Payment Options by Tag Heuer

“We have no outstanding tax liabilities in Korea,” he said, adding that the company had already paid its dues in full after it faced a tax audit. "Happy to engage with any lawsuit or regulatory inquiry to the best of our ability - we have nothing to hide," Kwon added.

Should you pick Vivo over Galaxy S22 and OnePlus 10 Pro? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.