Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship (벤처창업연구)

The Korean Society of Business Venturing (한국벤처창업학회)
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A Study on the Economic Effects of Big Tech Companies: Focusing on the Google Revenue and Tax Issues

글로벌 플랫폼이 국내 경제에 미치는 영향 연구: 구글 매출 추정 및 세원잠식 사례연구를 중심으로

  • Received : 2023.01.13
  • Accepted : 2023.02.23
  • Published : 2023.02.28
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Abstract

Big tech companies are further strengthening its status against the background of data accumulation, price competitiveness by the platform, and competitive advantage due to the network effect. The competition subcommittee of the European Union(EU) imposed a huge fine on Google for antitrust violations, which was interpreted as an attempt to collect Google's unpaid taxes. In fact, taxation efforts in the form of 'Google tax' are underway, targeting expedient tax avoidance by global platforms. It has power and has a considerable influence on the startup ecosystem. The domestic sales and tax scale of global platforms, which have a great impact on domestic content startups and small and medium-sized venture companies, are not accurately measured. In the case of Google, according to research literature, sales in Korea were estimated at about 2 trillion to 3 trillion won in 2017, but Google Korea reported sales of 290 billion won in 2021 and paid 13 billion won in taxes. This study aims to verify the economic effect of the global platform that has a great influence on Korea, and specifically to quantitatively estimate the annual domestic sales and taxes of Google, a representative global platform. As a result of estimating Google's annual domestic sales and taxes based on the figures presented in the document related to Google's economic effect published by Google, the result was 4 to 9 trillion won in annual sales and 390.6 to 913.1 billion won in taxes. This study is meaningful in that it provides basic data on the direction of national and tax policies in the future digital economy era by estimating the problem of tax authority by country of global platform companies with a specific example of Google.

빅테크 기업으로 불리는 글로벌 플랫폼들은 전 세계적인 규모로 성장하면서 데이터의 축적과 가격경쟁력, 네트워크 효과를 확보했다. 이로 인한 경쟁우위를 배경으로 글로벌 플랫폼이 그 위상을 더욱 강화되고 있다. 유럽연합(EU) 집행위 경쟁분과위원회는 반독점 위반을 이유로 구글에 대해 막대한 과징금을 부과하기도 하였는데 이는 구글의 미납 세금을 거둬들이기 위한 것이라 해석되기도 하였다. 실제로 글로벌 플랫폼의 편법적인 조세회피를 겨냥하여 '구글세' 형태의 과세 노력이 진행 중이다. 한편, 국내 콘텐츠 스타트업 및 중소벤처기업 등에도 큰 영향을 미치고 있는 글로벌 플랫폼의 국내 매출과 세금 규모는 정확히 측정되지 않고 있다. 구글의 경우 연구문헌에 따르면 2017년 한국 매출을 약 2조~3조원으로 추정하였으나, 구글코리아는 2021년 매출이 2,900억 원이라 신고하고 130억 원의 세금을 납부하였다. 본 연구는 국내에 큰 영향을 미치고 있는 글로벌 플랫폼의 경제적 효과를 검증하고 구체적으로 대표적인 글로벌 플랫폼인 구글의 연간 국내 매출액과 세금을 정량적으로 추정하고자 하였다. 구글에서 발간한 구글 경제 효과 관련 문건에서 제시된 수치를 기초로 구글의 연간 국내 매출과 세금을 추정한 결과, 연간 매출 4~9조 원, 세금 3,906억 원~9,131억 원의 결과를 얻었다. 본 연구는 이런 글로벌 플랫폼 기업의 국가별 과세 권한 문제를 구글이라는 구체적 사례를 가지고 추정함으로써 앞으로 전개될 디지털 경제 시대의 국가, 조세 정책 방향에 대한 기초 자료를 제공했다는 점에서 의의가 있다 할 수 있다.

Keywords

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