Samsung Electronics and SK hynix paid more than 6 trillion won in corporate taxes through the third quarter of this year. That is nine times larger than a year earlier. As corporations' operating profits increased during the semiconductor supercycle (boom), the amount of corporate taxes paid also rose sharply.
According to the quarterly reports disclosed by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix on the 23rd, the aggregates of corporate taxes the two companies paid from the start of the year through Sept. 30 came to 6.231 trillion won. That is about nine times more than the same period a year earlier (701 billion won).
Breaking down Samsung Electronics' corporate taxes, they rose 3.1 times from 607 billion won last year to 1.886 trillion won this year. SK hynix increased 46.1 times over the same period, from 94 billion won to 4.344 trillion won.
Corporate tax refers to the tax that corporations must pay annually based on operating profit. The higher the operating profit, the more tax must be paid. Corporations pay corporate taxes twice each in the first half and the second half.
The reason the two companies' corporate tax payments increased is seen as their strong results amid the semiconductor supercycle. Samsung Electronics' third-quarter operating profit was 12.1661 trillion won, up 32.5% from a year earlier. SK hynix also recorded third-quarter operating profit of 11.3834 trillion won, up 61.9% from a year earlier.
In the industry, the view is that the two companies likely paid an additional 1 trillion won in corporate taxes last month alone as they boosted semiconductor supply amid the recent global expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) businesses. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are expanding sales of high-value memory semiconductors such as high bandwidth memory (HBM) and DDR5 to big tech companies.