The judgment of the court below is reversed.

Defendant shall be punished by a fine of KRW 50,000,000.

The above fine shall be reasonable for the defendant.

1. The summary of the grounds for appeal (unfair sentencing) of the lower court’s punishment (amounting to KRW 100,000,000, etc.) against the Defendant is too uneased and unreasonable.

2. We examine ex officio the reasons for the above appeal by the prosecutor ex officio.

A. The former Value-Added Tax Act, amended by Act No. 9268, Sept. 7, 2017; enacted on January 1, 2010; introduced an electronic tax invoice system for the purpose of reducing excessive tax cooperation costs related to value added tax and enhancing transparency in transactions and reducing transparency in tax transactions. Accordingly, the current Value-Added Tax Act requires corporate entrepreneurs and individual entrepreneurs to issue the electronic tax invoice and then transmitting the tax invoice to the Commissioner of the National Tax Service for the purpose of facilitating the issuance of the annual tax invoice by no later than September 3, 2017 (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 201Do1054, Sept. 7, 2017). However, if the former Value-Added Tax Act was amended by Act No. 9268, Dec. 26, 2010; then, the former Value-Added Tax Act introduced the electronic tax invoice system for the purpose of reducing tax compliance costs related to value added tax and enhancing the transparency of transactions.

The former Enforcement Rule of the Value-Added Tax Act, which was amended on March 26, 2009 and enforced on January 1, 2010, is prescribed (Article 54(2)). In addition, the introduction of the former electronic tax invoice system, was made by distinguishing the total amount of sales and purchase tax invoices from the total amount of electronic tax invoices by changing the form of a list of total tax invoices by sale and by seller, into the total amount of sales and purchase tax invoices by electronic means.