최근 디지털세제의 동향과 우리나라 과세제도의 개편방안 ―OECD BEPS 프로젝트를 바탕으로―

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) and G20 approved 15 Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS) project actions in 2015 to cope with the tax challenges of the digitalisation of the economy. These challenges were identified as one of the main areas of focus of the BEPS by huge Multinational Enterprises. The interim report in 2018 made by the Inclusive Framework focused on the two outstanding issues；the nexus and profit allocation rules compared with the Action 1 2015 final report which discussed two previously identified direct tax issues, namely the exacerbated BEPS issues and the broader tax challenges. In 2019 the Inclusive Framework examined three proposals, which sought to expand the taxation rights of the user or market jurisdiction for revising the profit allocation and nexus rules in response to these challenges posed by digitalisation. The discussion has focused primarily on two of these proposals. First, the user participation proposal would be to reallocate a proportion of the non-routine profit of the business, from the entities that are currently realizing that profit, to the jurisdictions in which users are located. Second, the marketing intangible proposal would provide that some or all of the non-routine profit allocable to marketing intangibles associated with the market jurisdiction would be taxable by that market jurisdiction. Further, it would ensure that the nexus rules allow the market jurisdiction to exercise the right of taxation over this marketing intangible profit. The latest, a detailed discussion of the concept of significant economic presence is also taking place, but this concept was revised more recently. Under this proposal, a taxable presence in a jurisdiction would arise when a non-resident enterprise has a significant economic presence on the basis of factors that evidence a purposeful and sustained interaction with the jurisdiction via digital technology and other automated means. However, this sustained basis proposal would potentially be used only when combined with other factors to establish nexus in the form of a significant economic presence in the country concerned. Based on these concepts, the Inclusive Framework agreed to undertake work on the following two pillars in January 2020. Pillar one focuses on the allocation of taxing rights, and seeks to undertake a coherent and concurrent review of the profit allocation and nexus rules. Pillar two focuses on the remaining BEPS issues and seeks to develop rules that would provide jurisdictions with a right to “tax back” where other jurisdictions have not exercised their primary taxing rights or the payment is otherwise subject to low levels of effective taxation. In this paper I will analyse in detail the two pillars agreed by the BEPS Inclusive Framework in January 2020 and then review the controversies and solutions of the issues. Moreover, I will introduce the process and source of disputes between temporary digital service tax in European Union countries and the US Trade Act and suggest that the introduction of digital service tax would be useless to the Republic of Korea based on the development of digital (income) tax by the OECD. I will discuss resolutions to the new digital taxation system after inspecting current domestic taxation problems in the digital economy.