문화․예술행사와 부가가치세 과세

One of the policies that most countries adopt to promote and advance culture and the arts is to provide exemptions from value added taxes on supplies of goods and services related to culture and arts that meet certain conditions. The purpose of this article is twofold：to review the legal rationale behind the policy of V.A.T. exemption on cultural and artistic events from multiple perspectives, and to make recommendations for interpreting existing legal grounds and making new laws. ‘Kulturstaat’ is one of the fundamental principles of the constitutional law for many countries. Culture and the arts are often sources of positive exter- nalities and can be regarded as merit goods in certain contexts. These characteristics often justify a country’s support for cultural and artistic activities. However, there are necessary constraints on the degree and types of instrumental support that a state can render to promote culture and the arts, given the fact that a state gathers its resources from limited tax revenues. Therefore, expanding the scope and boundaries of support for culture and the arts in any country requires a cautious approach. The existing laws that support culture and the arts are quite vague, and are often the cause of interpretative disputes. A reason for this can be attributed to the nature of culture and the arts per se, which cannot be defined and established in a clear-cut manner. A recent court decision invited controversy by excluding performing arts from “creative works of art”. While a literal reading of the existing legal provisions may support the court decision, it does not obviate the need for an amendment of Article 36, Section 1 of the Enforcement Decree of the Value Added Tax Act, which restricts the scope of “creative works of art” to those of fine arts, music, and photography. Nevertheless, the discussion of whether or not to use the purpose of “profit-making” as a condition for imposing or abolishing value added taxes on supplies of cultural and artistic events must first be supported by empirical research that demonstrates the benefits and harms of adding such condition.