Budget Office presents tax benchmark for 18.4GW of AI data centers

The Budget Office applied its calculation to the government's proposed 18.4GW of AI data centers, arriving at annual corporate tax of about 15.2 trillion won and local corporate income tax of about 1.5 trillion won. It stressed that these are benchmark figures based on multiple assumptions, rather than an official tax revenue forecast. It explained that actual tax revenue could vary with revenue growth, profit margins, facility utilization, tax credits and reductions.

The analysis was included in a research response titled 'Tax Revenue Effects of Hyperscale AIDC' that Democratic Party lawmaker Hwang Jung-a received from the National Assembly Budget Office.

The calculation starts with the business results of Elice Group, a domestic AI cloud company. The Budget Office annualized revenue for the first half of 2026 and simply scaled up an estimated IT power capacity of about 4.7MW to 1GW, using disclosed GPU configurations and power specifications. Applying an operating profit margin of 30.1% and current corporate tax rates, among other factors, it calculated annual corporate tax of 828.1 billion won and local corporate income tax of 82.8 billion won per 1GW.

The Budget Office judged that it is difficult to reliably estimate AI data centers' tax revenue effects at present. It cited the large investments required for data center and GPU capacity expansion and research and development, along with uncertainty over future profitability and investment scale.