지방자치단체 파산제도의 도입가능성에 관한 비교법적 일고 - 미국 지방정부파산법(미국 연방파산법 제9장)의 시사점-

Recently, the fiscal crisis of the municipalities has been an important issue, for the municipalities have managed their budget without considering their tax income and other financial resources. In fact, most of basic local governments or municipalities belonging to broader cities have secured only part (60～80%) of their yearly budget. The discussions of a countermeasure to deal with fiscal crisis in order to secure fiscal soundness have been revived, especially along with situations where local government tax income have been decreased since IMF. In this connection, it is needed for examine the possibility of implanting a municipality bankruptcy system for the purpose of checking the local governments or municipalities’loose budget management and secure their fiscal soundness. This article, inter alia, comparatively examines the bankruptcy system of the United States and the possibility of introducing the bankruptcy system to the Korean legal soil. Nonetheless as status quo it seems impossible to implant the local governments bankruptcy system in Korea, because the local governments ought to be treated differently from natural persons or private enterprises who can be financially bankrupted and become legally incapacitated. Hence, we by no means can utilize a liquidation type bankruptcy system for the local governments or municipalities. Thus, this study carefully considers the introducing and implanting an individual debtor rehabilitation type bankruptcy for the local governments or municipalities as the Municipality Bankruptcy Act (Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Act) of the United States is.