사립 박물관 및 미술관 관련 세제의 비교법적 고찰 - 독일과 한국을 중심으로

The number of museums increase rapidly in recent years in Korea as well as in Germany. However, it is not likely that the quality of a museum in Korea keeps up with its qualitative growth. The museums in Korea do not have enough artworks to implement their own functions. In this aspect, the benefits in taxation should be given to vitalize the contribution of artworks and monetary donation necessary to collect and preserve the artworks. Germany has a well-structured tax system to promote the active donation for the development of cultural and art fields. For example, the inheritance tax and gift tax on artworks are exempt if certain conditions are met and the expense can be deductible where a person or a corporation spend money to repair and preserve cultural assets. In Korea, the deferment of collection for inheritance tax is the only benefit in taxation. In addition, national or public museums only receive the monetary donation passively and they are not allowed to do any direct action for the donation. Both Korea and Germany have problems on evaluation system of artworks leaving room for improve ment. One thing to note is that any tax benefit on private museums should not be allowed. That is because it is hard to tell whether the purpose of the private museum is for a personal pleasure or private use or for a genuine public interest. Therefore it would be desirable that tax benefits for museums are limited to the nonprofit public museums. It does not seem that the field of the art and culture coordinates with taxes. A government has a duty for the prosperity of culture and art so that the nation enjoys culture and art, and the nation has a duty to pay taxes. In this regard, it is a perennial task how the guarantee of freedom of art in Constitution is harmonized with the implement of taxing right by the government. However, a tax system in Korea should be designed to guarantee freedom of art broadly in that Korea aims at the cultural nation these days.