The South Korean government intends to impose taxes on the global companies, which deal with IT technologies. The current state of business, when Google, Apple, Amazon and others do not pay taxes from the revenue, obtained in South Korea, causes complaints among local companies, which see unequal conditions for running business, finance.ua reports.
According to the current legislation, the companies should pay taxes, if they have “permanent places of business” in Korea. The representative offices are viewed as “previous or additional places of business” that releases global companies from the need to submit reports and pay taxes.
Meanwhile, the range of activities of such companies are very large and are constantly growing, as the South Korea is considered as the attractive market. For example, Amazon is actively oriented on the Korean market, which is proved by the introduction of free-of-charge delivery of orders. Google and Apple obtain a huge profit through the sale of applications.
“Taking into account the specifics of the digital economy, it is necessary to expand the concept of constant places of business so that the government can obtain authorities to charge taxes from them”, - Ahn Jeong-sang, Political Advisor to the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, expressed such point of view, said.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance confirmed that its representatives participate in the working group, involved in consideration of possible amendments to the tax policy.
