IFRS도입에 따른 보험준비금 관련 세제 개편과 업계 대응 노력

Korean insurance business is scheduled to implement K-IFRS 1104 “Insurance Contract” (equivalent to IFRS 4) from 2011, and, in 2010, Korean tax authority reformed its tax law to reduce the burdens of Korean businesses from IFRS adoption. This case study is to examine the effects of K-IFRS and the related tax law of technical reserves and equalization reserves on Korean general insurance companies. This paper also describes how Korean general insurance business has coped with IFRS adoption and the related tax reform. This study focuses on technical reserves and equalization reserves of general insurance companies. In case of technical reserves, the evaluation method of Korean accounting principles before IFRS (K-GAAP) is different from that of IFRS. Also, it is not clear whether the amounts form the difference between K-GAAP and IFRS can be accepted by Korean tax law before tax reform in 2010. For equalization (catastrophe) reserves, K-IFRS prohibits the recognition the reserves after 2011, Korean general insurance companies may pay a lots of additional taxes from the equalization reserves recognized as a liability before IFRS adoption. To cope with these problems, Korean general insurance association has made systematic preparations. First of all, the association requested the professionals of tax, accounting, and tax law to make the proposals for reducing the burdens from K-IFRS adoption. Using the proposals, the association had submitted its opinions on the insurance reserves to the related academic associations and Korean tax administration. Finally, tax reform in 2010 reflected most of the opinions of the association. As a result, Korean general insurance companies could escape the additional taxes. However, the reformed tax law will allow the partial amount of equalization (catastrophe) reserves, and its limits of the reserves should be revised to the full amount of the reserves in future.