Google Korea wins the second trial in a corporate tax lawsuit worth 150 billion won

Google Korea also won on appeal in the administrative lawsuit it filed in اعتراض to a corporate tax assessment of 150 billion won. On the 7th, the Seoul High Court dismissed the appeal by the Yeoksam Tax Office and upheld the firstinstance ruling that canceled the corporate tax assessment imposed by the tax authorities on Google Korea. This case began when the tax authorities imposed 139.9 billion won in corporate and local taxes on Google Korea in 2020. The authorities determined that although Google Korea had paid a significant portion of its domestic advertising revenue as fees to Google Singapore from 2016 to 2018, it had not withheld tax on those payments. The firstinstance court sided with Google, ruling that the contractual payments between Google Korea and the overseas entity did not constitute royalty income, and the appellate court maintained that ruling as well. However, it dismissed part of the claims related to local taxes, saying there was no need to separately determine them as a matter of law. Recently, the tax authorities have also suffered a string of defeats in corporate tax disputes involving multinational companies such as Netflix and Meta.