교육용역에 대한 부가가치세 면세의 축소방안 연구

Value Added Tax (“VAT” hereafter) exemption on education services incompletely reflected the “public welfare nature” criteria, which the European Union suggests and most its member nations enforce, and, as a result, is excessively extended in Korea. That is, latest VAT law revision as of 31 December 2010 adopted that criteria to prescribe liable-to-VAT education services so imperfectly that a tiny fraction of those services of the “private nature” wrongly deserve VAT exemptions. To be more specific, because current VAT law only imposes education services of driving academy and dance academy, lots of education services which don’t meet the “public welfare nature” criteria still remain VAT exempt items. Based on recognition of such problems, this study suggests practical plans to revise tax laws to rationalize the VAT exemption on education services as below. First, it can be considered that liable-to-VAT object should be prescribed comprehensively to include various “hobby nature” education services. However, this plan might be against the principle of legal taxation, and is hard to implement. Otherwise, VAT exemption should be limited to education services which satisfy the education expense exemption in the Personal Income Tax Act, which can be strictly regarded as satisfactory of the “public welfare nature” criteria, as well as other similar education services which the government specifies to cope with changes in circumstances. This plan should be considered much better in that the “public welfare nature” criteria could be explicitly adopted in VAT taxation.