Actor Jeon Jong-seo (left) and her partner, director Lee Chung-hyun. Kyunghyang Shinmun file photo

It has come to light that actor Jeon Jong-seo belatedly registered her separate company for the popular culture and arts planning business. Her agency, however, has drawn a line from the recent ‘tax evasion suspicions’ involving one-person agencies.

It was confirmed on the 10th that on the 4th Jeon registered the corporation ‘Summer’, which she established in June 2022, for the popular culture and arts planning business. It is a ‘belated registration’ roughly three years and eight months after the corporation was founded. Jeon serves as the company’s CEO, and her partner, director Lee Chung-hyun, is listed as an internal director.

The corporation’s stated business purposes are: ▲ production, development, distribution, and agency services for film and drama content ▲ actor entertainment and management ▲ rental of equipment and production facilities for film and broadcasting ▲ content planning and sales, among others.

Under current law, registration as a popular culture and arts planning business is mandatory to engage in management. Jeon is understood to have belatedly completed the registration process with this in mind.

However, ANDMARQ maintains that this delay in registration is unrelated to ‘intentional concealment’ or ‘tax evasion’.

On this, an ANDMARQ representative stated, “Summer was created for the two, as actor and director, to form a partnership and co-plan projects,” adding, “In practice, we handled director Lee Chung-hyun’s directing and screenplay contracts, as well as the production of a music video in 2024, through this corporation.”

As for the reason for the late registration, the representative said, “Because management was not initially a core line of business, we did not recognize the need to register; after encountering related issues recently, we rectified it.”

They further explained that it is unrelated to the recent controversy over tax evasion (tax saving) via separate entities outside agencies. The representative said, “Jeon has nothing to do with the recently surfacing tax-saving (tax-evasion) issues,” and “Since signing an exclusive contract with ANDMARQ, all income from her entertainment activities has been settled and paid to the actor personally.”

Attorney No Jong-eon (Jonjae Law Firm) said, “In the process of many stars setting up one-person agencies recently, cases have often arisen in which they remained unregistered due to operational inexperience or a lack of awareness of legal procedures,” adding, “This belated registration likewise leaves disappointment over procedural inexperience.”