사업상 증여에 대한 부가가치세 과세

A value added tax is a form of consumption tax that is in principle levied on all consumption. Gift of business property result in consumption of goods, and for this reason the Value Added Tax Act levies taxes on business gifts. Some types of transactions are exempted from VAT, however, and the debate over the scope of the exemption is continuously evolving. Especially, regarding to scope of business gift, interpretation of the phrase “the condition that consi- deration of gifted goods should not be included in consideration of supply of goods, which is main trasaction” carries an improtant meaning. In addition, there are difficult issues on other points such as axabale amount and time of supply. Many provisions in the related laws are vague, in fact practitioners often decide whether a transaction is taxable based on the General rule or authoritative interpretations. The Korean Supreme Court issued a number of judgments in relation to gift of business property, but the general understanding of the case law has become distorted due to the continued misunderstanding. According to current case theory, a transaction may be exempt from taxation even when it fulfills the other requirements of a business gift if it is part of the business’s incidental expenses for sales. In deciding whether or not a business gift is subject to a levy of value added tax, the theory seeks the standard of decision not from the nature of a value added tax and the related laws and regulations but rather the distinction between incidental sales expenses and entertainment expenses, which is fundamentally in the area of corporate tax. An erroneous standard inevitably leads to erroneous results. This confusion owes in large part to the problems of the current laws and regulations, and this state of affairs requires appropriate legislative action. The purpose of this article is to suggest an solution for this.