SMEs ministry secures legal basis to integrate small merchant data

The SMEs ministry said Tuesday the State Council approved revisions to the Small Merchant Basic Act that establish a legal basis for integrating fragmented data on small merchants. The move aims to resolve issues where multi-store operators or individuals with side businesses received duplicate support, ensuring government budgets reach genuinely vulnerable self-employed workers.

Under the new law, the ministry can request detailed information from the National Tax Service and the Ministry of Employment and Labor beyond simple sales figures, including data on business income, wages, cost of goods sold, and selling and administrative expenses. This shift addresses long-standing concerns that policy formulation required a clearer view of actual business income rather than revenue alone.

To facilitate this process, the legislation permits the ministry to delegate data handling tasks to its affiliated research and support organizations. Employees at these agencies will be treated as public officials under the Criminal Act when processing tax information.

"This revision fundamentally resolves the problem of duplicate support caused by previous business-centric criteria," Lee Byung-kwon, the ministry's second vice minister, said. "We expect government budgets to be deployed more densely and thickly to support the vulnerable small merchants who truly need them."

Lee added that the ministry plans to continue collaborating with various institutions to connect scattered data sources.