재정지출 선호도 및 복지정책 만족도가 증세 태도에 미치는 영향

The study investigates the impact of preference over government expenditures and assessment of welfare policy on the willingness to pay taxes for welfare increase. Although demands for various social welfare programs has increased ever before, few discussions have been found as to the effective way of public financing. Granted the necessity of tax increase to sustain the programs, scientific studies on the factors affecting attitude towards tax increase is capable of providing significant insights into fiscal and/or tax policy. Using the welfare penal data, I conducted statistical analyses examining relative preference over government expenditures and assessment of government performance regarding the Korean government’s social welfare policy. The empirical findings show that the fiscal psychological factors affect taxpayers attitude towards tax increase for social welfare. In particular, respondents who are favorable of expending more on environment, health care, pension, poverty, elderly, disable, child care, culture and art, and governmental administration tend to have positive attitude about tax increase for social welfare. In addition, assessment of government performance as to health care and housing policies has a positive impact on the tax increase, while the disable and the poor is negatively associated with the tax increase. This study sheds new light on the link between tax morale and fiscal policy. In order for the government to ensure tax compliance with tax increase, it should establish the goal of welfare policy and adjust the distribution of resources in accordance with taxpayers’ welfare preference. The study is the first attempt to examine explicitly the impact of fiscal psychological factors on the attitude about tax increase for social welfare.