Lim Kwang-hyun Vows to 'Do Everything Possible' After Losing Tax Lawsuits Against Big Tech

National Tax Service Commissioner Lim Kwang-hyun emphasized today (October 13) regarding the recent consecutive losses in tax lawsuits against global big tech companies such as Google and Meta, stating, "It is a difficult situation, but to protect our taxation sovereignty, we will work hard and do everything we can."

Commissioner Lim made the remarks during the National Tax Service audit by the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee after Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Tae-nyon pointed out that "tax authorities are losing consecutive lawsuits in court."

Lawmaker Kim asked, "The 154 billion won lawsuit involving Google Korea ended with a partial victory for the plaintiff, and Meta also won its 200 billion won lawsuit. Is this a limitation of legal principles or a problem of proof?"

In response, Commissioner Lim said, "Global information technology (IT) companies are trying to avoid paying corporate taxes by not establishing business places. Nevertheless, since they make a lot of money in Korea, we believe that their fair share of taxes should be levied from the perspective of taxation sovereignty. We have been taxing them through various logics, such as deemed permanent establishments, but the court's judgment seems to be different."

He added, "This would be resolved if the digital services tax, which the United States opposes, were introduced, but it is a difficult situation."

Regarding the criticism by People Power Party lawmaker Kim Sang-hoon that "the National Tax Service, which operates a non-tax revenue arrears management task force, ranks last among 60 government agencies in its own non-tax revenue collection performance," Commissioner Lim explained that "its nature differs from other ministries."

He added, "This is non-tax revenue that consists of additional penalties attached after arrears have already occurred, and this area will improve following the revision of the law in 2019."

Addressing concerns that the collection rate of the arrears management task force may not be high, he said, "I am confident that integration collection will increase the arrears collection rate because we can utilize the infrastructure possessed by the National Tax Service."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.