It was found that last year Samsung Electronics paid about 2.8 trillion won in corporate tax and SK hynix paid 5.6 trillion won, respectively.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 1st, on a separate basis Samsung Electronics' corporate tax payment last year totaled 2.8427 trillion won. That is an increase of 1.7797 trillion won (about 167.4%) from 1.063 trillion won a year earlier.
SK hynix's corporate tax payment last year came to 5.628 trillion won. That is up 5.3467 trillion won (1900.4%) from 281.3 billion won a year earlier. The two companies' combined payments were 8.4707 trillion won, a surge of 7.1264 trillion won (530.1%) from 1.3443 trillion won the previous year.
Corporate tax that corporations pay to the government is calculated for domestic payments based on separate financial statements, excluding taxes paid abroad by subsidiaries or local entities. Accordingly, the increase in corporate tax payments is seen as the result of both companies' earnings improving significantly last year alongside the rapid growth of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
On a consolidation basis last year, operating profit at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix reached 4.36011 trillion won and 4.72063 trillion won, respectively. SK hynix set all-time highs in both annual revenue and operating profit, while Samsung Electronics renewed its record for annual maximum revenue.
This year, forecasts keep coming that both companies will each post around 200 trillion won in annual operating profit. That would be an all-time high, about four to five times last year's results for the two companies. As a result, the semiconductor industry's corporate tax payments this year are also expected to set a new record, further boosting its contribution to tax revenue.
Analysts also say that, with these corporations' bonuses surging, employees' earned income tax payments will rise proportionally. Recently, SK hynix paid a performance bonus of 2964% of base pay (one-twentieth of annual salary), the highest level ever, and Samsung Electronics paid 47% of annual salary in the device solutions (DS) institutional sector that runs the semiconductor business.