National Tax Service collects 5.56 bln won in taxes on foreign artist performances

The National Tax Service collected 5.56 billion won ($4.02 million) in taxes after finding dozens of cases in which withholding on fees paid for foreign artists’ performances in Korea had not been properly reported, government data showed Thursday.

The findings came from a review launched in July 2025 of 110 withholding agents involved in performances held between 2022 and 2024. Reporting omissions were found in 39 cases, according to data obtained by Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Jung Tae-ho.

In Korea, organizers and other domestic entities that pay foreign performers are generally responsible for withholding and reporting taxes on their performance income.

"With a growing number of performances in Korea by prominent overseas artists, tax administration of income earned here by foreign performers also needs to be more meticulous," Jung said.

“The NTS should closely examine the tax situation and improve its oversight system to prevent repeated reporting omissions.”

Organizers bringing foreign artists to Korea must generally obtain a recommendation for the performance from the Korea Media Rating Board under the Performance Act. The application contains information on the fees to be paid to the performers.

The NTS used those records to identify possible underreporting. It compared the amounts reported to the ratings board and remitted overseas with the performance income declared for tax purposes.

When the figures differed, the agency estimated the performance fee using whichever was higher, the amount reported to the ratings board or the overseas remittance.

The NTS suspended such cross-checks in 2020 and 2021, when performances declined sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. As appearances by foreign artists rebounded, however, the volume of data available for tax checks rose steeply.

The number of foreign-performance records increased from 682 in 2021 to 1,857 in 2022, 2,425 in 2023 and 2,824 in 2024, more than quadrupling in three years.