Supreme Court "Welfare points given to executives and employees also correspond to earned income."

The Supreme Court ruled that the "welfare point" provided by the company is also an earned income under the income tax law.

The Supreme Court recently returned the case to the Gwangju High Court, breaking the plaintiff's ruling in favor of a lawsuit filed by Company A against the head of the Yeosu Tax Office to cancel the disposition of refusal to correct the earned income tax.

The Supreme Court judged that even if welfare points are not direct labor costs, there is a certain correlation with the work provided to the company by executives and employees.

He also explained that it is equivalent to earned income because employees can freely purchase necessary items by using them within a set period of use and use, allowing them to gain significant economic benefits.

The lower court reversed the judgment that earned income includes not only the price of work but also related salaries on the premise of work, but welfare points do not fall under this category.

Earlier, Company A asked the Yeosu Tax Office in 2021 to return 72 million won paid by the company as a withholding tax, saying that welfare points paid to executives and employees do not correspond to earned income.

However, when the head of Yeosu Tax Office rejected the request for correction, saying that welfare points were properly taxed, Company A filed a lawsuit against it.