The Seoul High Court 2009Nu19207 revocation of revocation of the refund of customs duties.

January 22, 2010

1. The plaintiff's appeal is dismissed.

2. The costs of appeal shall be borne by the Plaintiff.

The judgment of the first instance shall be revoked. The defendant shall revoke the disposition rejecting the refund of overpaid or erroneously paid amounts against the plaintiff on January 16, 2008.

The reasoning for the court’s explanation on the instant case is as stated in the reasoning of the judgment of the court of first instance, except where the part on the “legal nature of the suit of April 3, 199,” which is set forth in the main text of Article 8(2) of the Administrative Litigation Act and Article 420 of the Civil Procedure Act, is as follows.

Article 46 (1) of the Customs Act (amended by Act No. 7581 of Feb. 21, 2006; hereinafter “Customs Act”) provides that when a person liable for duty payment claims the refund of erroneous or erroneously paid customs duties, etc., the head of a customs office shall promptly refund such customs duties under the conditions as prescribed by the Presidential Decree. Thus, whether the decision of the head of a customs office to reject a claim for refund of erroneous or erroneously paid customs duties, etc. is a disposition subject to appeal.

Unlike internal tax, the previous Supreme Court precedents held that the disposition rejecting the refund of erroneously paid customs duties can be contested as an administrative litigation against the disposition rejecting the refund of erroneously paid customs duties. However, since the Customs Act amended by Act No. 5194 on Dec. 30, 1996 was introduced as the same as the internal tax, it is reasonable to deem that the procedure for refunding erroneously paid customs duties after January 1, 1997, which was enforced the above revised Act as the internal tax applied under the Framework Act on National Taxes, should be dealt with en bloc pursuant to the correction request system. Although the above provision provides that the taxpayer may claim the refund of erroneously paid customs duties and the procedure for the refund of the customs duty already determined by the head of a customs office, it cannot be deemed that the taxpayer's right to claim the refund of erroneously paid customs duties has specific and direct influence on the existence or scope of the right to claim the refund of customs duties imposed by the taxpayer, the plaintiff in this case can file an administrative litigation against the defendant's corrective disposition on Sep. 18, 2006.