다국적기업에 대한 과세권 배분의 동향과 과제

초록

Most of the OECD countries exempt the foreign source income earned by domestic corporations from taxation under the participation exemption. Such an expansion of taxation based on source approach is rendering huge chances of tax saving for multinational corporations especially because there remain other countries where they can enjoy low taxation. Under the international trade environment of rapidly increasing digital transactions, multinational corporations come to be able to avoid the taxation by the countries where the consumption of their services or products is made because they can sell their services and products without establishing their branches there. In response to such avoidance the consumption countries are introducing diverted profits tax or digital service tax and revising their tax laws on VAT. The OECD extended the participation of the countries in the follow-up work for the BEPS Action 1 under the Inclusive Framework and it will be able to finish the Pillar 1 and the Pillar 2 sooner or later. The major points of the Pillar 1 are firstly the new nexus rule under which a consumption country may be recognized as having a nexus to tax the income of digital service company and consumer facing business company as a source country and secondly the modified residual profit split method under which the taxable income may be allocated to a country where nothing more than the sale has happened. These rules go along with the destination-based taxation in part. The major point of the Pillar 2 is the top-up taxation by which the non-low tax countries may levy additional tax on the income of corporations which have utilized the low tax countries up to the amount corresponding to the gap between the global minimum effective rate and the actual tax rate applied by the low tax countries. The minimum taxation under the Pillar 2 is expected to have an effect to suppress the tax avoidance abusing the tax laws developed under the source approach. It is expected that the negotiations under the Inclusive Framework will bear fruits during the year of 2021. Korea needs to participate in the negotiations actively and go through the follow-up work to reflect the agreement into the domestic legal system. During this process the destination-based income taxation will be materialized a bit in the tax laws and the corporate tax rates may have to be adjusted. It seems that the introduction of digital service tax in Korea is not suitable to the current tax system. In view of the competitiveness of the tax system of Korea the introduction of participation exemption is strongly recommended.

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