"Not Jealous of the Chairman"... Top 1% YouTubers and BJs Earn an Average Annual Income of 1.3 Billion Won

"Annual Income Rises, but Number of Tax Investigations Remains the Same"

The average annual income of the top 1% of YouTubers or BJs (internet broadcast hosts) was found to be approximately 1.325 billion KRW.

Stock photo unrelated to the article content. Asia Economy DB

According to data submitted by the National Tax Service to Jeong Il-young, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, on the 27th, the total reported income for 2023 by individual media creators such as YouTubers and BJs last year was recorded at 1.7861 trillion KRW.

Among them, the income of about 240 people in the top 1% accounted for more than 18% of the total income, amounting to over 320 billion KRW. This means an average income of about 1.325 billion KRW per person.

The number of individuals reporting as individual media creators increased more than 18 times over five years, from about 1,300 in 2019, but the National Tax Service conducted only about 20 tax investigations last year.

Stock photo unrelated to the article content. Asia Economy DB

Rep. Jeong stated, "As the individual media market grows, there is an increase in extreme and provocative content production aimed at boosting video views to increase income through advertising and personal sponsorships." He added, "Recently, among political YouTubers as well as general YouTubers, behaviors that distort facts or use extreme expressions have increased even more since the December 3 emergency martial law, which is concerning."

He also urged, "Although the annual income of YouTubers and BJs has been rapidly increasing every year, the number of tax investigations by the National Tax Service has hardly increased over the past three years," and called for "strong tax investigations."

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