과거 5년간의 세제개편의 방향과 향후 5년간의 바람직한 방향

Tax reforms of the first year of Lee, Myung-bak Government, i.e., 2008 chose the direction of reducing widely tax burden of people in the belief that the reduction of tax burden would put the economy in good circulation by increasing the volume of investment and creating a great number of jobs, and accordingly increasing the GNP per capita. However, contrary to this belief, the aggravation of household budget of the economically low and weak classes and the widening of gap of income, which had been caused by the prevalence of Neo-liberalism over the past several decades and 2008 worldwide economic crisis, were not improved. Thus, 2009 tax reform changed the direction toward escalating ‘the healthy of governmental financial balance’ in the manner of eliminating widely existing tax expenditures and of strengthening the taxation of under-the-table transactions. The direction of lower tax accepted a year ago retreated to that of larger tax. The direction of tax reforms rendered since 2010, succeeding that of 2009, have sustained the following three policy bases：ⅰ) maintenance or increase of tax assistance for economically low or weak classes, ⅱ) reduction of tax expenditures for large enterprises or high-income earners and exploitation of tax sources for the purpose of escalating the healthy of governmental financial balance to the extent to cope with the increase of financial expenditures, ⅲ) continuous maintenance or enlargement of tax expenditures necessary for the expansion of economic development capacity and for the creation of jobs. These three bases of tax policy should be sustained for the time being in rendering tax reforms since the international and domestic, economic and social circumstances of our nation would not change in the near future. Provided that it will be necessary to find out the point of balance between two conflicting policy aims, i.e., secure procurement of financial revenues and assistance of continuous economic development. The specific policy targets based on these bases of tax policy to be effectively accomplished in short time would be：ⅰ) increase of labor productivity, ⅱ) creation of many jobs, ⅲ) activation of house transactions, ⅳ) activation of private restructuring of household debts. Tax reforms in the forthcoming years should be focused on designing and developing effective and appropriate systems for the fulfillment of these targets. In the course of such tax reforms the following several principles should be abided by：the first is not to make any tax expenditures which cannot generate intended policy effects or may generate any adverse effects, the second is not to cause the beneficiary of tax expenditures to stick to the moral hazard of neglecting possible economic activities in order to keep the benefits of tax expenditures, the third is to have any tax expenditures to be provided equally among every related taxpayers.