종교인 과세 법안에 대한 국회의원들의 투표행태 분석: 2015년 소득세법 일부개정법률안을 중심으로

This study aims to show what factors have influenced the legislative process of the Religious Tax Bill by analyzing meeting minutes of the subcommittees and standing committees which inform us of why legislators amended the Bill. We focus on the religious affiliation and the proposal anti-discrimination bill as key variables, along with party and ideology variables known to affect the voting behavior of legislators. The results are threefold. First, committee members appeared to receive considerable pressure from conservative Protestantism, which led them to provide benefits to religious community in the amendment process. Second, the trend that legislators in the ruling party voted ‘Yea’ and Protestant legislators voted ‘Nay’ was derived from the analysis. Third, in contrast with the hypotheses set out in this study, it is appeared that legislators who initiated the anti-discrimination bill opposed to voting for the Bill. The implication of this study is that it has empirically inferred the influence of religious variable that has not been well covered in previous literature of legislators’ voting behavior. With conflicts related with religious beliefs such as homosexuality and abortion issues being intensified, the influence of religious variables on the political process should constantly be explored.