부가가치세법상 용역의 공급장소와 과세권에 관한 연구

Abstract

The value-added tax (VAT) of each country has been levied according to the policies of each individual country based on tax neutrality to protect the competitiveness of domestic industries, under the two principles of destination principle and origin principle without adjustment through separate tax treaties between countries. As these two principles suggest, in order to apply these principles, consumption and production of taxable services must be clearly distinguished in terms of their behavior and place. However, with the changes in the industrial environment, IT-enabled services have emerged, making it difficult to distinguish between the production (provision) and consumption (use) of services, and it is sometimes difficult to specify the production (provision) and consumption (use) places.
 In the supreme court decision 2018du39621 dated July 29, 2022(hereinafter “the Decision”), the Supreme Court judged the place of supply of service based on the place where the important and essential part of the service was performed, not on the VAT tax principle or the VAT Act, for IT-enabled services supplied across borders. However, it was found that this judgment was problematic and began this study.
 In this paper, it was reviewed the taxing right and the place of supply of service under the VAT Act from an academic and legal perspective, analyzed the precedents in which the controversy over the place of supply of service was an issue, and confirmed that the Supreme Court's position has generally been to judge the place of supply of service as the place where it is consumed. It was also suggested that the Korean VAT Act be amended in the direction of specifying the general principle of the place of supply of services in the law text, and establishing exceptions for each type of service in subordinate legislation, as in the VAT Acts of Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Consumption Tax Act of Japan.
 This study will be an opportunity to establish new criteria for the place of supply by considering the characteristics of IT-enabled services, and that it will be helpful for the future improvement of the VAT Act.