Open Decision Ledger · Tax & international taxation
Who owns the refund claim on tax withheld in the withholding agent's name
Supreme Court, Apr. 24, 2025, 2024Da295876 (judgment)
Case name: 부당이득금반환청구의소[원천징수세액 상당에 대한 환급청구권이 원천납세의무자와 원천징수의무자 중 누구에게 귀속되는지가 문제된 사건]
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where a corporate tax assessment against the source taxpayer was later cancelled and the tax refund arising from withholding had been applied to that corporate tax as a pre-paid amount, does the right to claim the unrefunded balance belong to the withholding agent that paid in its own name or to the source taxpayer?
Holding
It belongs to the withholding agent that paid the tax in its own name. The set-off of a national tax refund against a tax claim is akin to a civil-law set-off, and where the tax claim that was to be extinguished does not exist or is void or cancelled, the set-off has no effect, so the refund claim of the tax originally determined and then set off revives in that range. The source taxpayer cannot claim payment directly merely because the amount was set off against its corporate tax or because the assessment was cancelled, absent special circumstances such as a valid transfer of the refund claim.
Summary of the holding, verbatim
이때 원천징수의무자 명의로 납부된 세액에 관하여는 원천징수의무자가 그 환급청구권자가 되고, 원천납세의무자는 자신 명의로 납부된 세액에 관하여만 환급청구권자가 될 수 있을 뿐이다.
Unofficial English translation
At this time, as for tax amounts paid in the name of the withholding agent, the withholding agent becomes the person entitled to claim the refund, and the withholding taxpayer can become the person entitled to claim a refund only with respect to tax amounts paid in its own name.
Disposition
Partly reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결 중 피고 패소 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다. 원고들의 상고를 모두 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed and remanded insofar as it ruled against the defendant, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court. All of the plaintiffs' appeals are dismissed.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
소멸대상인 조세채권이 존재하지 아니하거나 당연무효 또는 취소되는 경우에는 그 충당의 효력이 없는 것으로서
Unofficial English translation
Where the tax claim to be extinguished does not exist or is void by operation of law or is cancelled, the set-off has no effect in that respect, and
Factors
- 국세환급금의 충당은 납세의무자가 갖는 환급청구권의 존부나 범위 또는 소멸에 구체적이고 직접적인 영향을 미치는 처분이라기보다는 국가의 환급금 채무와 조세채권이 대등액에서 소멸되는 점에서 민법상 상계와 비슷하고
- 충당의 대상이 되었던 조세의 환급청구권이 아니라 당초 확정되었다가 충당된 조세의 환급청구권이다
- 원천징수의무자가 그 환급청구권자가 되고
- 원천납세의무자는 자신 명의로 납부된 세액에 관하여만 환급청구권자가 될 수 있을 뿐이다
Unofficial English translation
• The set-off of a national tax refund is not so much a disposition that concretely and directly affects the existence, scope, or extinguishment of the refund claim held by the taxpayer, as it resembles set-off under the Civil Act in that the State's refund obligation and the tax claim are extinguished up to the offsetting amount, and
• it is not the claim for refund of the tax that was the object of the set-off, but the claim for refund of the tax that was originally determined and then set off
• the withholding agent becomes the person entitled to claim the refund, and
• the withholding taxpayer can become the person entitled to claim a refund only with respect to tax amounts paid in its own name.
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2004. 3. 25. 선고 2003다64435 판결(공2004상, 699)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2003Da64435 decided March 25, 2004 (Gong 2004 Sang, 699)
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 1994. 12. 2. 선고 92누14250 판결(공1995상, 513), 대법원 2004. 3. 25. 선고 2003다64435 판결(공2004상, 699) / [2] 대법원 2002. 11. 8. 선고 2001두8780 판결(공2003상, 85), 대법원 2003. 3. 14. 선고 2002다68294 판결(공2003상, 987), 대법원 2010. 2. 25. 선고 2007두18284 판결(공2010상, 682), 대법원 2016. 7. 14. 선고 2014두45246 판결(공2016하, 1191)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
Where several withholding agents paid the tax in their own names and only part of the refund has been paid out, how is the remaining balance allocated among them?
The remand judgment of the Seoul High Court in the same case (2023Na2031448) will show how the refund claim is shared among the withholding agents and whether any agreement on its allocation is found. Any amendment to Article 51 of the Framework Act on National Taxes or to Articles 31 and 33 of its Enforcement Decree also requires this entry to be read again.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-26
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 8 (open question and revisit condition).
Axis 8 (Open question and revisit condition): Primary “Where several withholding agents paid the tax in their own names and only part of the refund has been paid out, how is the remaining balance allocated among them?” vs Independent “Could an independently established assignment of the withholding agents' refund claims entitle the income recipients to recover directly from the State?”
The primary reading asks how the balance is split among multiple agents, while the independent reading asks about recovery by assignment, so they point to different leftover points.
이때 원천징수의무자 명의로 납부된 세액에 관하여는 원천징수의무자가 그 환급청구권자가 되고, 원천납세의무자는 자신 명의로 납부된 세액에 관하여만 환급청구권자가 될 수 있을 뿐이다.Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Seoul High Court, in its judgment of 5 September 2024 (2023Na2031448), left standing the first-instance judgment that the plaintiffs, the source taxpayers, held the corporate tax refund claim on the withheld amount. It reasoned that once the withheld refund was applied to their corporate tax, the plaintiffs were treated as having paid that tax in substance and the tax relations ended conclusively. In the alternative it found an implicit agreement among the parties to settle the tax relations by that set-off, because the withholding agents had never objected to it.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court reversed the part adverse to the State in full and remanded the case to the Seoul High Court. It held that once the corporate tax assessment was cancelled, the effect of applying the refund as a pre-paid amount ceased, and the refund claim belonged to the withholding agents as the payers unless special circumstances existed. It added that applying a refund that never belonged to the plaintiffs was likely to have had no effect from the start, that the agents' silence could not establish an implicit agreement, and that even such an agreement would require further examination of who would hold the refund claim arising after cancellation. The plaintiffs' appeals were dismissed because they presupposed that the claim belonged to them.
Distinguishing conditions
- Tax paid in the source taxpayer's own name, since that taxpayer holds the refund claim on it by the Court's own rule.
- A case in which the source taxpayer validly obtained a transfer of the refund claim from the withholding agent before the set-off, which the Court treated as a special circumstance.
- A case in which the parties agreed who would hold the refund claim arising once the assessment is cancelled, since the Court required that point to be examined separately.
Record verification notes
Set each payment against the name in which it was made, since the Court decided the ownership of the refund claim on that point alone. Then search the file for any written transfer of the refund claim from a withholding agent to a source taxpayer, and for any agreement on who would hold the refund if the assessment were cancelled. Check also the wording of Article 51 of the Framework Act on National Taxes and Articles 31 and 33 of its Enforcement Decree in force at the time of the set-off.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 국세환급금 충당의 법적 성격 / 국세환급금 충당으로 소멸할 대상인 조세채권이 존재하지 않거나 당연무효 또는 취소되는 경우, 납세의무자가 충당의 효력이 없음을 주장하여 민사소송으로 국세환급금의 반환을 청구할 수 있는지 여부(적극) 및 이와 같이 국세환급금 충당의 효력이 없는 경우 그 범위에서 되살아나는 권리(=당초 확정된 후 충당되었던 조세의 환급청구권) / 이러한 법리는 원천징수의무자 명의로 납부된 세액에 관한 환급금의 경우에도 동일하게 적용되는지 여부(적극) [2] 원천징수의무자가 원천납세의무자로부터 원천징수대상이 아닌 소득에 대하여 세액을 징수·납부하였거나 징수하여야 할 세액을 초과하여 징수·납부한 경우, 원천징수의무자 명의로 납부된 세액에 관한 환급청구권자(=원천징수의무자) [3] 갑 은행 등 원천징수의무자들이 을 외국법인 등과 관련된 을 법인 등의 하위 중간 지주회사들에 배당금 등을 지급하면서 관련 국세를 원천징수하여 과세관청에 납부하자, 과세관청이 위 원천소득의 실질귀속자는 을 법인 등이고 그들에게 국내 고정사업장 또는 국내사업장이 있다며 을 법인 등에 소득세 또는 법인세 부과처분을 하면서 위 원천징수 관련 환급금을 소득세 또는 법인세의 기납부세액으로 공제·충당 처리하였다가, 외국의 합자회사에 대해서는 소득세가 아닌 법인세가 부과되어야 한다는 취지의 대법원판결이 있은 후 소득세 부과처분을 취소하고 법인세 부과처분을 다시 하면서 위 원천징수세액 환급금을 법인세 기납부세액으로 재차 공제·충당하였는데, 이후 을 법인 등은 국내에 고정사업장 등을 가지고 있다고 보기 어렵다는 이유로 확정판결에 의해 법인세 부과처분이 취소되자, 을 법인 등이 법인세 기납부세액으로 충당 처리되었던 원천징수세액 가운데 환급되지 않고 남아있는 부분에 관한 권리가 자신들에게 있다며 국가를 상대로 부당이득반환을 구한 사안에서, 원천징수세액이 갑 은행 등 원천징수의무자들 명의로 납부된 이상 원천징수세액에 관한 국세환급금에 대한 권리가 갑 은행 등에 있다고 보는 것이 타당한데도, 이와 달리 보아 을 법인 등의 청구를 일부 인용한 원심판단에 법리오해 등의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
[1] The legal nature of the set-off of national tax refund claims / Whether, where the tax claim to be extinguished by the set-off of a national tax refund does not exist or is void by operation of law or is cancelled, the taxpayer may claim in a civil action the return of the national tax refund by asserting that the set-off is ineffective (affirmative), and the rights that revive to that extent where the set-off of a national tax refund is thus ineffective (= the claim for refund of the tax that was originally determined and subsequently set off) / Whether such a legal principle applies identically in the case of a refund concerning tax amounts paid in the name of the withholding agent (affirmative) [2] Where the withholding agent collected from the withholding taxpayer and paid tax amounts with respect to income not subject to withholding, or collected and paid tax amounts exceeding the tax amounts that were to be collected, the person entitled to claim a refund concerning the tax amounts paid in the name of the withholding agent (= the withholding agent) [3] In a case where, after A Bank and other withholding agents paid dividends and the like to the lower-tier intermediate holding companies of Corporation B and others related to Foreign Corporation B and the like and withheld the relevant national taxes and paid them to the tax authority, the tax authority, holding that the persons to whom the said withholding income was substantively attributed were Corporation B and others and that they had a domestic fixed place of business or a domestic place of business, imposed assessments of income tax or corporate tax on Corporation B and others while deducting and setting off the refund relating to the said withholding as tax amounts already paid for income tax or corporate tax; then, after a Supreme Court judgment to the effect that corporate tax, not income tax, should be imposed on a foreign limited partnership, cancelled the income tax assessments and again imposed corporate tax assessments while again deducting and setting off the said refund of the withheld tax amounts as tax amounts already paid for corporate tax; and thereafter, when the corporate tax assessments were cancelled by a final and conclusive judgment on the ground that it was difficult to regard Corporation B and others as having a fixed place of business or the like in Korea, Corporation B and others, claiming that the rights concerning the portion of the withheld tax amounts that had been set off as tax amounts already paid for corporate tax and remained unrefunded belonged to them, sought restitution for unjust enrichment against the State; even though it was proper to regard the rights to the national tax refund concerning the withheld tax amounts as belonging to A Bank and others, inasmuch as the withheld tax amounts had been paid in the names of A Bank and other withholding agents, a case in which it was held that there were errors such as a misapprehension of legal principles in the determination of the court below, which held to the contrary and partially upheld the claim of Corporation B and others
Summary of the holding
[1] 국세환급금의 충당은 납세의무자가 갖는 환급청구권의 존부나 범위 또는 소멸에 구체적이고 직접적인 영향을 미치는 처분이라기보다는 국가의 환급금 채무와 조세채권이 대등액에서 소멸되는 점에서 민법상 상계와 비슷하고, 소멸대상인 조세채권이 존재하지 아니하거나 당연무효 또는 취소되는 경우에는 그 충당의 효력이 없는 것으로서 이러한 사유가 있는 경우에 납세의무자로서는 충당의 효력이 없음을 주장하여 언제든지 민사소송으로 이미 결정된 국세환급금의 반환을 청구할 수 있다. 이와 같이 국세환급금 충당의 효력이 없는 경우 그 범위에서 되살아나는 권리는 충당의 대상이 되었던 조세의 환급청구권이 아니라 당초 확정되었다가 충당된 조세의 환급청구권이다. 나아가 이러한 법리는 원천징수의무자 명의로 납부된 세액에 관한 환급금이 다른 조세채권에 충당 처리되었다가 해당 조세채권이 마찬가지로 존재하지 않거나 당연무효 또는 취소되는 경우에도 동일하게 적용된다. [2] 원천징수 세제에서 원천징수의무자가 원천납세의무자로부터 원천징수대상이 아닌 소득에 대하여 세액을 징수·납부하였거나 징수하여야 할 세액을 초과하여 징수·납부하였다면, 이는 국가가 원천징수의무자로부터 납부받는 순간 아무런 법률상 원인이 없는 부당이득이 된다. 이때 원천징수의무자 명의로 납부된 세액에 관하여는 원천징수의무자가 그 환급청구권자가 되고, 원천납세의무자는 자신 명의로 납부된 세액에 관하여만 환급청구권자가 될 수 있을 뿐이다. [3] 갑 은행 등 원천징수의무자들이 을 외국법인 등과 관련된 을 법인 등의 하위 중간 지주회사들에 배당금 등을 지급하면서 관련 국세를 원천징수하여 과세관청에 납부하자, 과세관청이 위 원천소득의 실질귀속자는 을 법인 등이고 그들에게 국내 고정사업장 또는 국내사업장이 있다며 을 법인 등에 소득세 또는 법인세 부과처분을 하면서 위 원천징수 관련 환급금을 소득세 또는 법인세의 기납부세액으로 공제·충당 처리하였다가, 외국의 합자회사에 대해서는 소득세가 아닌 법인세가 부과되어야 한다는 취지의 대법원판결이 있은 후 소득세 부과처분을 취소하고 법인세 부과처분을 다시 하면서 위 원천징수세액 환급금을 법인세 기납부세액으로 재차 공제·충당하였는데, 이후 을 법인 등은 국내에 고정사업장 등을 가지고 있다고 보기 어렵다는 이유로 확정판결에 의해 법인세 부과처분이 취소되자, 을 법인 등이 법인세 기납부세액으로 충당 처리되었던 원천징수세액 가운데 환급되지 않고 남아있는 부분에 관한 권리가 자신들에게 있다며 국가를 상대로 부당이득반환을 구한 사안에서, 원천징수세액이 갑 은행 등 원천징수의무자들 명의로 납부된 이상 원천징수세액에 관한 국세환급금에 대한 권리가 갑 은행 등에 있다고 보는 것이 타당하고, 갑 은행 등 원천징수의무자들 명의로 납부된 세액이 을 법인 등에 대한 법인세에 공제·충당된 적이 있다거나 법인세 부과처분이 취소판결에 의해 취소되었다는 사정만으로 을 법인 등이 곧바로 국가에 대해 원천징수세액 상당의 환급금 지급을 구할 수 있다고 단정하기 어려운데도, 이와 달리 보아 법인세 부과처분이 취소되더라도 원천징수의무자들의 환급청구권이 되살아난다고 볼 수 없고 원천징수세액 환급금을 법인세 기납부세액으로 삼는 데 당사자 사이에 묵시적 합의가 있었다는 등의 이유로 원천징수세액 상당의 지급을 구하는 을 법인 등의 청구를 일부 인용한 원심판단에 법리오해 등의 잘못이 있다고 한 사례.
Order
원심판결 중 피고 패소 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다. 원고들의 상고를 모두 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed and remanded insofar as it ruled against the defendant, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court. All of the plaintiffs' appeals are dismissed.
Provisions referred to
[1] 국세기본법 제51조, 국세기본법 시행령 제31조, 제33조, 민법 제492조, 제741조, 행정소송법 제2조 [2] 국세기본법 제51조, 국세기본법 시행령 제31조, 제33조, 민법 제741조 [3] 국세기본법 제51조, 국세기본법 시행령 제31조, 제33조, 민법 제492조, 제741조
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