Korea to tighten tax rules for foreign workers

Tax authorities are moving to tighten tax rules for foreign workers in Korea. Yonhap

By Jung Min-ho

Rep. Choo Kyung-ho

The National Tax Service (NTS) said Thursday it will tighten tax rules for foreign workers.

The move came a week after Rep. Choo Kyung-ho of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party said that 2,178 foreign workers here had failed to pay 15 billion won ($13.2 million) in taxes. The comment was made during a parliamentary inspection of the NTS.

Choo criticized the NTS for failing to collect sufficient tax data from foreigners, who are increasingly replacing Korean workers in many industries.

With the current system and available data, he said it would be difficult to keep track of how many foreign workers should pay tax and even if they don't, it would be difficult to penalize them.

Under the law, when foreign workers leave Korea, they are required to submit tax payment certificates to the immigration office. But the Justice Ministry does not enforce this, saying it would be too difficult with available resources to apply the rule to 13 million foreigners (including tourists and other visitors) who leave Korea every year.

According to the NTS, the reported income of foreign workers in 2016 was about 9.5 trillion won, a big increase from 5.9 trillion won in 2012.

Meanwhile, the number of registered foreigners working at Korean companies increased to 563,496 from 474,289.