한국의 근대 조세 100년사와 국가, 민주화, 조세 공평의 과제

Abstract

The contents and equity of modern taxation vary with the characteristic of state power and the level of democratization. During the Japanese colonial period, tax whose main items were land tax, consumption tax and income tax was used for the maintenance of colonial rule and costs of war the Japanese empire provoked. After the liberation from Japanese colonial rule, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world and had to increase money supply or receive financial assistance because of the lack of source of taxation. In contemporary Korean history, major companies and rich people have had the benefit of low taxation. The Korean government have recovered from the Korean War by imposing heavy taxes on peasants and secured finances from mass taxation-consumption tax until 1987. However, the government had to face stiff resistance when it started to impose taxes on assets and capital income. Income tax contributed less to recovering from the financial crisis in 1997 than any other economic resource. It was not until the 2000s that the proportion of corporation tax increased. But the proportion of consumption tax is still high and the rate of assets and capital income tax is remarkably low, compared to that of wage income tax. To establish the democratic tax equity is the foundation for economic development.