국제증권거래와 관련한 원천징수제도의개선에 대한 고찰 －미국의 QI 제도와 최근 OECD 및 EU에서의논의내용을 중심으로－

The international financial system is built around financial intermediaries and investments worth tens of trillions of U.S. dollars are held through multi-tiered securities holding system worldwide. In these intermediated structure, there may be a number of layers between the issuer of a security and the beneficial owner. Also, most intermediaries have adopted the practice of holding securities on a fungible basis in omnibus accounts which contain securities pertaining to beneficial owners in order to maximise the efficiencies of the multi-tiered securities holding system. Like this, the vast majority of publicly traded securities is now held through a complex domestic and foreign intermediaries. For this reason, the U.S. adapted that QI system that allow for the application of the treaty benefits based on pooled information provided by foreign intermediaries and may also shift withholding responsibilities to such foreign intermediaries. And this system are becoming increasingly common. Japan adopted a system of QFI for interest withholding in the mid-90's. And OECD and EU recommend that countries develop systems for claiming treaty benefits that allow AI to make claims on behalf of their customers on a pooled information basis. They also recommend that investors would be able to indicate their entitlement to treaty benefits by providing a standardized investor self-declaration to the intermediary with respect to which they have a customer relationship, without procuring a certificate of residence. On the other hand, Korea has not adapted its withholding tax collection to recognize this multi-tiered securities holding environment. If system, like Korea, is based on the implicit assumption that there is direct relationship between the issuer of a security and the beneficial owner of income, it may be difficult or impossible to make an effective claim for treaty relief because of the reality of intermediated financial structures. One of the problems of Korea's system is that a domestic withholding agent obtain and present to the tax authorities a certificate of residence for the beneficial owner, issued by that owner's home country tax authorities. However, the financial institution that has information regarding the beneficial owner may be several layers away from the withholding agent. Therefore, the requirement that a certificate of residence be presented to the domestic withholding agent effectively requires the information to be passed through multiple layers of financial intermediaries. However, such a requirement is inefficient, as passing such information up a chain of intermediaries imposes a substantial administrative burdens on the intermediaries. A more fundamental problem with any such requirement is that it is inconsistent with the intermediary's business goal of protecting its proprietary customer information. In other words, intermediaries in the chain prefer to provide treaty claims with their customers, without passing proprietary customer information to potential competitors. Take the benefits of standardized investor self-declaration and pooled information system into consideration, it is desirable for Korea to develop systems for claiming treaty benefits that allow QI or AI to make claims on behalf of their customers on a pooled information and investor self-declaration basis.