Exclusion and Deferral of VAT Preliminary Notices for 1.33 Million Individual Entrepreneurs Affected by COVID-19

Extension of Filing Deadline for Corporate Businesses Affected in Special Disaster Areas with 38,000 People

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] The government will exclude advance VAT notices and defer notices to reduce the tax burden on 1.33 million small individual business owners struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, 2.15 million individual general taxpayers must pay the advance notice tax amount equivalent to half of the tax amount paid in the previous tax period (July to December 2019) by the 27th of this month.

On the 2nd, the National Tax Service announced that it will unilaterally exclude advance notices (480,000 people) and defer notices (850,000 people) for special disaster areas (Daegu and Gyeongbuk Gyeongsan, Cheongdo, Bonghwa), businesses directly affected by COVID-19, and small individual business owners with income below a certain threshold.

For 38,000 corporate businesses, the filing and payment deadlines will be unilaterally extended by one month for special disaster areas and by three months for businesses directly affected by COVID-19.

For other affected businesses unable to pay the assessed national tax by the deadline, if they apply for collection deferral, the payment deadline will be extended up to three months, providing maximum support.

The National Tax Service plans to send type-specific notices detailing tax support measures by mail to all individual business owners subject to advance notices.

Additionally, to improve liquidity for companies in new industry sectors, refund payments will be made 13 days earlier to businesses applying for early refunds.

The National Tax Service stated, "This is a serious situation where we are making an all-out effort using all available means across the government to overcome the emergency economic crisis caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic," and added, "We will support this with active tax administration assistance."

Meanwhile, this support is larger in scale than the tax support for businesses affected by the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014 (19,000 people) and the 2019 wildfire damage tax support (23,000 people).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.