Seoul, Oct 1 Google Korea, the local unit of US tech giant Google, paid 17.2 billion won ($12.2 million) in corporate taxes last year, a lawmaker said on Wednesday, adding the amount represents only a fraction of what South Korean firms would have had to pay.
"Google Korea paid 17.2 billion won in corporate taxes last year, although it should have paid 676.2 billion won," said Rep. Choi Soo-jin of the People Power Party, citing figures based on the company's estimated sales, reports Yonhap news agency.
She referred to a report by professor Jeon Seong-min of Gachon University, which estimated that Google Korea's revenue in 2024 could have reached up to 11.3 trillion won.
Applying Korean internet giant Naver Corp.'s corporate tax-to-revenue ratio of 5.9 percent, Choi argued that Google Korea's tax liability should have been 676.2 billion won.
As of last year, Google Korea accounted for 31.2 percent of the country's data traffic, compared with Naver's 4.9 percent.
However, Google Korea reported just 386.9 billion won in revenue, while Naver posted 10.7 trillion won in sales, Choi said. Naver paid 390.2 billion won in corporate taxes in 2024.
"Neglecting the issue of domestic revenue minimisation and tax avoidance by global big tech companies like Google will be a major factor hindering fair competition with domestic firms," Choi said. "In the long term, this will inevitably have a negative impact on the domestic information and communications technology ecosystem."
Meanwhile, Google said on Tuesday it will accept the South Korean government's security requirements to remove coordinates for the Korean region from its map in order to secure approval to export high-precision map data overseas.
"We are announcing two more measures to address any remaining national security concerns from the government," Cris Turner, vice president for government affairs and public policy at Google, said in a press conference in Seoul.
"First, to provide world-class navigation service in Korea, we are strengthening our long-term partnership with local technology," he said.
"Second, we will remove latitude and longitude coordinates for places in Korea," he added, noting that the Seoul government has asked Google to remove such information.
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