Korea's registered social-media sellers reported 18 times more income in 2024 than in 2020

Dividing 33.31 billion won by 1.73 billion gives about 19.3 times, so "more than 18 times" is, if anything, a modest way to put the rise in declared income ^[1]. Most of it is headcount. There were 6.4 times as many registered operators in 2024 as in 2020 ^[2], and each one declared about three times as much: roughly 18.1 million won on average, against about 6 million won four years earlier ^[3][4][5].

Compare that average with the account one influencer posted in July: "I quit a large company and earned my entire former annual salary in just three days with a single group-buy campaign." ^[10] The influencer put that salary at LG Electronics at about 100 million won and said one group-buy event brought in roughly the same ^[11]. One campaign of that size equals about 0.3% of the whole category's declared income for 2024. It is also about five and a half times the average operator's declared year ^[6][7].

The two figures can be reconciled in three ways. The influencer may be an outlier above a long tail of small sellers. The money may sit under another business code, since the count covers only operators that listed "social media market" as their primary line of business ^[1]. Or it may not be declared at all. The National Tax Service's reply to Moon's office allows for the third possibility but puts no size on it. The agency said it "has limits on direct management of the tax base, beyond collecting individual transaction data through reports such as tips about failure to issue cash receipts between the parties involved." ^[6] So the agency hears about individual sales when a buyer complains, and otherwise it relies on what sellers file.

I'd expect any tightening to start with the intermediaries. The platforms that match brands with influencers already handle content production, sales measurement and commission settlement ^[9]. That gives them a record of who sold how much for which brand. A tax agency can ask a company for its books far more easily than it can rebuild orders taken by direct message. That ledger would still miss sellers who take orders by message and payment by bank transfer.

The opposing case is that the existing rule is working. On that view, a 6.4-fold rise in registrations ^[2] is what a registration requirement looks like as it pulls sellers into the tax base without new duties. The published material does not include a bill, a draft rule or a timetable, only a lawmaker's data request and the agency's answer ^[2][6]. If the agency responds with registration reminders and nothing more, the case for tighter oversight of these channels is weaker than the growth figures suggest.