도메인이름의 법인세법상 과세문제에 관한 연구

This paper studies tax issues related to domain name. Whether domain names fall under intangible fixed assets or not is not prescribed in the corporate income tax law, regarding to section 20 of the basic law for national taxes and section 43 of the corporate income tax law, GAAP would be considered. According to GAAP, domain names are consistent with the definition of intangible assets. Although domain names have the attributes of intangible assets, domain names are not prescribed in the corporate income tax law. Thus, it is necessary to examine current regulations. Specifically, whether domain names could be depreciable assets should be clarified. Current depreciation system depends on allocation of cost approach. To write domain names down, useful lives should be fixed. Regarding to the behavior of the initial registration period, easy renewal, the possibility of permanent possession, it is troublesome to calculate the useful lives. Korean national tax service takes a position to permit amortizing domain names as goodwill. The position of Korean national tax service is not persuasive. This paper suggests as followings; if the cost of purchasing domain names is little, the cost is recognized as deductible expense. If not, in principle, the related cost is recognized as assets. The specific useful lives is based on the average life span or 5 years like goodwill or trade marks.