South Korea's long standing e-Tax Invoice System

South Korea E-Invoices

South Korea introduced its Tax Electronic Invoice System i.e. e-Tax in 2011. This is a mandatory e-invoicing requirement alongside the obligation to report e-tax invoices shortly after issuance. This requirement means South Korea has a Continuous Transaction Controls (CTC) Reporting obligation. The scope of the mandate has been expanded to cover more taxpayers, however the initial workflows and requirements of the mandate have remained relatively stable since 2014.

Currently, e-invoicing is mandatory for all corporations and for individual taxable persons with a turnover of 0.3 billion KRW (approx. $270,K USD) or more.

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Mandate quick facts

  • Mandatory e-invoicing with CTC reporting model: An issued e-tax invoice must be transmitted to the National Tax Service(NTS) within one day of the invoice being issued.
  • Invoice data is reported to the NTS in XML format.
  • Invoices and amended invoices (credit and debit notes) are in the scope.
  • Applies to domestic transactions only. Cross border transactions are out of scope.
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Night view of bicycle bridge in Siheung, Gyeonggi province KVD702

Mandate rollout dates

  • 2011: The electronic issuance of VAT invoices and next day reporting became mandatory for all Korean corporate taxpayers.

  • 2012: In addition to the first category, sole proprietors with a turnover of 1 billion KRW (approx. $ 900,000 USD) and above must issue e-tax invoices.

  • 2014: The threshold was changed from 1 billion KRW (approximately US$900K) to 0.3 billion KRW (approx. $270K USD) and above.

Penalties

  • The issuance of an invoice in any other format (e.g. paper) will result in a penalty of 2% of the value of supply.

  • Failing to transmit the issued invoices to the NTS will result in a penalty of 1%.

  • If the due date of the reporting to NTS is passed, taxpayers will face a penalty of 0.5% of the value of supply.

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How Sovos can help

As countries around the globe digitize their tax systems to close VAT gaps, our experts continually monitor, interpret and codify these changes into our software, reducing the compliance burden on your tax and IT teams.

Discover how the Sovos solution is tailored to manage all e-invoicing and related VAT obligations in South Korea.

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