The National Tax Service’s stalled probe into the penalty default by former President Chun Doo-hwan is expected to gain momentum as the revised tax pact between Korea and Singapore is set to take effect this week.

The revision calls for lifting a ban of free exchange of financial data between two tax authorities. Tax experts said the new pact may enable the NTS and the Financial Supervisory Service to track down former President Chun’s “mysteriously evaporated” properties.

Chun’s wealth has been under media spotlight again after his son Jae-kook was found to have established a paper company in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands in 2004, according to a local investigative journalist group. The company opened a corporate account at Arab Bank’s Singaporean branch, which authorities suspect housed a possible outflow of slush funds allegedly created by Chun’s father.

Before the amendment of the Korea-Singapore tax agreement, the Korean tax agency’s request for sharing the Singaporean data was virtually impossible. Now, the NTS and the FSS came a step closer to requesting financial documents to bring to light Korean-involved suspicious banking transactions in Singapore.

In 1997, Chun was ordered by the state to pay 220.5 billion won ($198 million) in penalties for taking bribes and other misconduct while he was president. But he paid only 53.3 billion won over the past 17 years, saying, “All I have is 290,000 won.”

The main opposition party floor leader Jun Byung-hun claimed that Chun and his three sons possess about 1 trillion won in various forms of properties.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)