Small Business Owners Recovering 'Overpaid Taxes' with BizNup... "Reduced Workload by 80% through Technological Innovation"

Interview with Lee Seongbong, CEO of G Enterprise
Small Business Owners Struggle with Tax Management Due to Labor and Funding Shortages
"Resolving Tax Blind Spots with AI Technology"

There is a company addressing the tax blind spots of small and medium-sized business owners. It is G Enterprise, a tax-tech (tax + technology) company operating the tax refund service ‘BizNep.’ Using artificial intelligence (AI), the company has developed technology that reduces tax-related workloads by 80%, managing the tax affairs of over one million small and medium-sized business owners.

On the 30th, Lee Seong-bong, CEO of G Enterprise, said, “It is difficult for tax accountants to provide high-quality services when dealing with numerous small-scale business owners,” adding, “We support tax services based on AI technology, making them more accurate and faster.”

Lee Seongbong, CEO of G Enterprise, is explaining the tax refund service 'Biznep'. (Photo by Lee Seungjin)

G Enterprise’s main customers are small and medium-sized business owners, with approximately 1.3 million members currently. Its key services include the tax refund claim service ‘BizNep Refund,’ which helps recover overpaid taxes, and the all-in-one tax service for sole proprietors, ‘BizNep Care.’ The service usage is simple: by verifying the customer, the data recorded in Hometax is analyzed to review refund amounts, which are then refunded by affiliated accounting firms.

Founded in May 2016, G Enterprise has been rapidly growing by filling the tax blind spots of small and medium-sized business owners. BizNep Refund, the first-ever tax refund claim service for sole proprietors launched domestically in September 2022, achieved a cumulative managed refund amount of 10 billion KRW within just one month. As word spread about the ease of recovering overpaid taxes, the number of service subscribers quickly increased, and by May this year, the cumulative managed refund amount exceeded 600 billion KRW.

CEO Lee explained, “Previously, tax refund claims were services only some could use, as the average refund amount had to be over 9 million KRW to entrust a tax accountant,” adding, “In contrast, BizNep supports refunds even for small amounts like 100,000 KRW, and internally, we refer to this as the ‘popularization of VIP services.’”

Lee, a certified public accountant from Samjong Accounting Corporation, one of the Big Four accounting firms, was inspired to start the company while working as a sole practitioner. He said, “After opening my practice, I first encountered small and medium-sized business clients who struggled with tax work due to lack of manpower and funds,” and added, “I felt limitations in serving them as a sole practitioner. I thought new attempts were necessary to provide high-quality services.”

Most of the AI technology applied in the current services was developed by CEO Lee himself. It is the result of learning coding day and night through online lectures and practical exercises during the early days of the startup. Half of the employees are engineers, and the company continues to invest significantly in system advancement, which has become another competitive advantage.

CEO Lee emphasized, “Some competing services have low system accuracy, resulting in large discrepancies between the queried refund amount and the actual refunded amount, but BizNep has almost no errors,” adding, “Through data automation technology, we have made it possible for two people to handle tax work that previously required ten.”

G Enterprise expects the recently launched all-in-one tax service BizNep Care to become a new growth engine. Its strength lies in offering tax services at 80% lower prices compared to the existing market. The company plans to expand services from tax management to labor and corporate management services. Additionally, it is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) by 2026.

CEO Lee forecasted, “Last year’s revenue was 16 billion KRW, and this year we expect to exceed 30 billion KRW, with projections to surpass 200 billion KRW by 2026,” adding, “As values toward occupations change and startups increase in this era, the tax-related market will continue to grow.”