Google Korea shelled out just 17.2 billion won—about $12.2 million—in corporate taxes last year, a South Korean lawmaker revealed Wednesday. That’s a tiny slice compared to what the tech giant’s local arm should have paid, sparking fresh debates on big tech tax avoidance.
Rep. Choi Soo-jin from the People Power Party pointed out that Google Korea’s tax bill should have hit 676.2 billion won based on its massive estimated revenue of 11.3 trillion won in 2024. She drew from a report by Gachon University professor Jeon Seong-min and applied the same 5.9% tax-to-revenue ratio that Korean internet powerhouse Naver Corp. uses.
Think about the scale: Google Korea dominates 31.2% of South Korea’s data traffic, dwarfing Naver’s 4.9% share. Yet, Google reported only 386.9 billion won in revenue, while Naver raked in 10.7 trillion won and paid 390.2 billion won in taxes that year. Choi warned that letting global players like Google minimize their local earnings hurts fair play for homegrown companies and could drag down South Korea’s entire information and communications technology scene in the long run.
On a different front, Google took steps Tuesday to ease national security worries and get the green light to export high-precision map data from South Korea. In a Seoul press conference, Cris Turner, Google’s vice president for government affairs and public policy, outlined two key moves.
First, the company plans to boost its partnership with local tech firms to deliver top-notch navigation services in Korea. Second, Google will strip out latitude and longitude coordinates for Korean locations from its maps, as requested by the government. These changes aim to address lingering concerns and keep things secure.
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