Some people are encouraging self-employed individuals to use so-called tax-saving card terminals, claiming that they can pay less taxes. Be aware that this is not tax-saving but tax evasion.
Reporter Kwon Young-in reports.
This is an advertisement for so-called ‘tax-saving payment terminals’ that can easily be found on the internet.
[Payment intermediary company promotional video: Based on a monthly sales volume of 10 million won, you can save 560,000 won in taxes per month, and if your monthly sales reach 100 million won, you can save 5.6 million won in taxes.]
Using your own company’s payment terminal is said to reduce sales through cost processing and save on taxes.
This has significantly increased since the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Self-employed individual: Those business owners approach us like that during the COVID era. They say, “It’s tough during the pandemic, right? We will help you like this…”]
Although they explained that everything was legitimate and legal, they are all illegal.
Payment intermediary companies are required to immediately report franchise payment records to the National Tax Service. However, these companies have sneakily hidden sales by not submitting them promptly and using false data in between.
Even though the franchisees paid about five times more in commissions, they not only paid less taxes but also avoided paying four major insurance premiums.
The National Tax Service announced that illegal businesses had been caught more than twice as much in this tax investigation than last year. However, illegal businesses are still deceiving self-employed individuals.
[Payment intermediary company official: If there is a problem in 2023 or 2024, even if the company closes down, we will not expose it.]
[Franchise owner: Really?]
Experts say that saving taxes through payment terminals is inherently impossible.
[Jiinseok/Official of a legitimate card payment intermediary company: There is no such thing as a tax-saving terminal in the world. (But they claim it saves taxes?) It’s tax evasion. (And it’s illegal?) That’s right.]
The National Tax Service emphasized not to use illegal payment intermediary companies as they impose not only collected unpaid taxes but also up to a 40% surtax if there is evidence that some self-employed individuals knowingly exploit illegal tax evasion.
(Video production: Choi Ho-jun, Video editing: Lee So-young)