570,000 Small Business Owners Exempt from COVID-19 Support Fund Repayment... 800 Billion KRW Scale

Revised Bill with Evidence Approved at Cabinet Meeting on the 2nd
Exemption Status and Amount Can Be Confirmed After the 9th

Repayment measures for some disaster relief funds provided to small business owners in the early stages of COVID-19 have been exempted. As a result, more than 570,000 people will no longer have to bear repayment amounts totaling 800 billion won.

A closed store in Myeongdong, Seoul, in January 2022, as the prolonged COVID-19 crisis deepened the worries of small business owners and self-employed individuals. Photo by Asia Economy DB

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that the partial amendment to the "Act on the Protection and Support of Small Businesses," which includes grounds for exempting the repayment of the 1st and 2nd disaster relief funds that were pre-paid to small business owners in the early stages of COVID-19, was approved at the Cabinet meeting on the 2nd.

Through this amendment, repayment amounts of about 800 billion won for more than 570,000 small business owners will be exempted.

The government had initially decided to pre-pay the 1st and 2nd disaster relief funds to small simplified taxpayers (with annual sales under 48 million won at the time) who had no tax data in the early COVID-19 period, and then recover the funds if an increase in sales was confirmed after tax filing with the National Tax Service.

However, considering that most of the repayment targets were small simplified taxpayers and that pre-payment, unlike overpayment or fraudulent receipt, was not due to any fault of the administrative agency or the small business owners, the government decided to pursue exemption from repayment through a legal amendment at the high-level government-party meeting on October 29 last year.

The exemption status and the amount subject to exemption can be checked on the disaster relief fund website after the amended law takes effect on the 9th.

Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups, said, “Small business owners are facing many difficulties amid the prolonged high-interest rate situation. I hope this exemption measure will help alleviate the hardships of small business owners to some extent.”

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