미국 세법상 Subchapter K와 S의 차이 및그 시사점

This article compares two pass-through tax regimes for business entities under Internal Revenue Code: Subchapter K which applies to partnerships and limited liability companies and Subchapter S which applies to small business corporations. Although S corporation and their shareholders under Subchapter S are treated similarly to partnerships and their partners under Subchapter K, significant differences exist in such as allocations, distributions, switches to different tax regimes, basis adjustment or treatment of entity debts, some of which favor S corporation while others favor partnerships. This article also compares Korean pass-through tax regime, Special Regulations on Joint Enterprises (SRJE) under Tax Incentives Limitation Law of Korea with the two pass-through tax regimes of the United States and suggests the modification of the current pass-through tax regime as follows:First, although SRJE is superior to the U. S. pass-through tax regimes in that SRJE applies to both corporations and partnerships, thus, a unified system, in which tax neutrality could be maintained, SRJE is regulated under Tax Incentives Limitation Law of Korea which is enacted for tax incentives. The pass-through tax regime should be contained in Corporate Tax Law and/or Income Tax Law Second, since SRJE applies to unlimited corporations or partially limited corporations which is not a popular form of the corporate organization, SRJE is not widely used in Korea, whereas the Subchapter S is widely used in the United States. All types of closely held and small sized corporations including stock holding companies and their members should be eligible to apply the pass-through tax regime.