[국감브리핑] Number of VAT refunds in the first half of this year: 410,000
Nam In-soon “Concerns about the departure of essential medical personnel and distortion of the health care system”
While the medical gap due to the expansion of medical schools has continued for eight months, foreign cosmetic surgery medical tourism appears to be enjoying the greatest boom ever.
It is pointed out that if medical resources are concentrated only on cosmetic surgery, side effects such as a decline in the quality of essential and public medical care may occur.
According to the ‘Status of Support Projects for Attracting Foreign Patients’ submitted by Nam In-soon, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, from the Korea Health Industry Development Institute on the 17th, the number of cosmetic surgery VAT refunds as of June this year was 413,276, which is significantly higher than the number of refunds last year, which was 383,665. It turned out to have been surpassed.
The current ‘Special Taxation Act’ provides special provisions for value-added tax refund for cosmetic surgery medical services for foreign tourists.
In order to improve the transparency of the foreign patient attraction market and support the attraction of medical tourism, it was decided to provide a temporary refund of value-added tax to foreign patients starting in April 2016, but this has been extended until 2025 through annual amendments to the bill.
Through this, a total of 1,207,358 cases, totaling 146.7 billion won, were refunded over 8 years and 3 months from April 2016 to June 2024.
Looking at each year, the number of foreign cosmetic surgery patients, which has steadily increased since 2016, plummeted due to COVID-19 and then began to rapidly increase after the endemic transition, increasing more than seven times from 52,552 cases in 2022 to 383,665 cases in 2023.
As of the first half of 2024, the number of VAT refunds by medical service was 62,683, with the largest number being skin regeneration, skin whitening, anti-aging treatment, and pore treatment, followed by wrinkle removal surgery (23,740 cases), double eyelid surgery (14,213 cases), and fat melting surgery. This was followed by 5,910 cases, followed by liposuction with 3,864 cases.
The foreigners who receive the most cosmetic surgery medical services are Japanese, accounting for 43.6% (228,901 people) of all foreigners over the four years from 2019 to 2023.
They were followed by Chinese people with 163,659 people (31.2%), Americans with 60,817 people (11.6%), Thai people with 59,761 people (11.4%), and Mongolians with 11,348 people (2.2%).
Rep. Nam In-soon said, “As the skin, beauty, and plastic surgery markets expand, the salaries of related doctors continue to increase, leading to concerns that this is encouraging the departure of essential medical personnel and distorting the health care system.” He added, “Strengthening local, essential, and public medical care.” He pointed out, “We need to create a structure where essential medical personnel can work stably by promoting policies that do this.”
Also, regarding the special value-added tax system, “It was a special system that was supposed to be operated temporarily at the time, but the ‘Special Taxation Restriction Act’ was revised several times and so far, value-added tax amounting to 150 billion won has been refunded,” he said. “Not only is there taxation inequality with Koreans, but He emphasized, “Considering the negative impact on the overall health care system due to the lack of tax revenue and the focus on cosmetic surgery, a complete reexamination is necessary.”
(Seoul = News 1)
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