(1) The Commissioner of the Korea Customs Service shall, in performing his or her duties, faithfully endeavor to protect and realize the rights of duty payers.
(2) In order to protect duty payers' rights, a duty payer advocate shall be assigned to the Korea Customs Service to control overall affairs of protecting duty payers' rights; and a local duty payer advocate in charge of performing the affairs for duty payer advocacy shall be assigned in a customs office prescribed by Presidential Decree.
(3) The Commissioner of the Korea Customs Service shall assign a duty payer advocate under paragraph (2) on an open-type position and ensure that the duty payer advocate and duty payer advocate perform their duties independently. In such cases, duty payer advocates shall be publicly recruited from among persons with professional knowledge of and experience in taxation, law, and accounting excluding the following persons:
1. Customs officers;
2. A person for whom three years have not passed since he or she resigned as a customs officer.
(4) The Commissioner of the Korea Customs Service shall publish materials on the performance of promoting business to protect the rights of duty payers, etc., to the general public periodically. <Newly Inserted on Dec. 20, 2016>
(5) The duty payer advocate and local duty payer advocate shall have the duties and authority prescribed by Presidential Decree, such as treatment of civil petitions for grievance related to tax, and matters necessary for the operation of the system for duty payer advocate service, such as the qualifications for a duty payer advocate and a local duty payer advocate, shall be prescribed by Presidential Decree.[This Article Newly Inserted on Dec. 31, 2019]