A Study on the Tax Measures of Data
Asian Tax Journal Vol. 23 No. 3 (2022), pp. 9-39
Abstract
In this study, considering the lack of a taxation system for ‘data’ that has strong excess revenue capacity and has virtually unlimited burden, as a new tax source that can guarantee Korea’s fiscal soundness, the concept and characteristics of data were examined, and analysis and theoretical review of related laws were conducted to propose a plan to establish a ‘data retention tax’. Specifically, according to the current Basic Data Act, although data can create added value and have the nature of an asset that can be acquired, considering that the scope of goods under the Civil Act is omitted and cannot be taxed under the current tax law, Article 98 of the Civil Code proposed an amendment to include ‘collections of electronic information with added value’ or ‘data’ in the scope of objects. Next, the new data holding tax was proposed after reviewing the possibility of taxation and specific taxation plans by dividing the data taxation method into transaction taxation, holding tax, and income tax. Of course, if data is included in the scope of goods under the Civil Act, the data can be taxed as transaction tax such as value－added tax or individual consumption tax, or income tax such as corporate tax or income tax. However, if data is taxed as transaction tax, there is a problem that the tax expense and tax cooperation cost increase excessively or the tax burden is passed on to the final consumer. If it is taxed as income tax or corporate tax, it is considered difficult to implement due to not only technical limitations in extracting data－related taxable income, but also overlapping taxation problems with digital taxes that are agreed and scheduled to be implemented internationally. It is thought that it is sufficiently possible to tax data as property tax, which is a local tax and a holding tax. When data is taxed as property taxes, it is difficult to determine the right to tax between local governments due to the ‘incomposibility, replication possibility, and combination possibility’ of data, and since most of the data with high economic added value is concentrated in large cities and metropolitan areas. Therefore, this study proposed a plan to establish a tax item called ‘data holding tax’ as national tax, but distribute a certain percentage of the tax revenue to local governments like the current local income tax (local corporate tax, local consumption tax) or transfer to a special account for balanced regional development or youth income. In order to improve the taxation equity between data businesses such as taxable platform companies and other general businesses, a plan was proposed to apply different tax rates in consideration of the amount of taxable data held or ability to generate profits, and the main business and data. On the other hand, considering the specificity of ‘intangible, replicable, persistent, and combinable’ inherent in the data and the enormous amount of taxable data, a plan was also proposed to establish a separate tax source management system that can accurately check the process of data collection, storage, distribution, and utilization. In this case, it is expected to be useful for tax source management of foreign platform companies that use personal information or data collected while supplying electronic services without installing fixed businesses in Korea
Keywords
- data
- data tax
- platform tax
- digital tax system
- data holding tax