‘아시아-태평양전쟁기’(1941∼1945) 조선총독부의 이자소득세 정책과 고소득층의 대응

This study aims to examine the implementation process of interest income tax policies enacted by the Japanese Government-General of Korea to collect wartime funds in the 1940s and the responses of a high-income bracket in Korea to investigate the actual conditions for them to be burdened by the costs of war and to preserve their property. Since after the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Government-General of Korea conducted a series of financial control policies to collect wartime funds. However, they reduced fixed bank deposits and caused spot speculation. Therefore, they made it difficult to secure stable long-term funds. To cope with these issues, the Japanese Government-General of Korea implemented the Joseon National Savings Union Law in 1941, enhanced national savings centered on the savings union and restricted the withdrawal of union savings to secure stable long-term funds. However, forced savings alone could not guarantee a national savings movement, and as a compensation, the Japanese Government-General of Korea offered some deduction of interest income tax for union savings under certain conditions. Furthermore, to establish a close link between the high-income bracket and the savings movement, it announced in 1942 an increase in the tax-exempt limit in the interest income tax clause to expand the tax-relief target from low- and middle-income brackets to the high-income bracket. Since after 1944, however, the demand on funds soared, and the Japanese colonial authority started to overuse tax-relief policies by offering interest income tax reductions, not only to union savings, but to general deposit accounts. The Japanese Government-General of Korea carried out various policies of taxation, savings or monitory contributions to collect funds from the high-income bracket. Among them, a policy on the savings with the higher target rate than the income tax rate was the most important and crucial fund collection policy in terms of quantity that it enacted. As opposed to the policy in Japan that assigned a target savings rate focusing on the income increment, this policy in Korea under the Japanese Occupancy set a uniform target savings rate, irrespective of the income increment. Accordingly, the high-income bracket who did not have much income increment started to suffer from low cash flow. To cope with this issue and protect their assets, they took active measures. For example, they diversified property investment such as investing in real estate in urban areas or reclaimed land development projects, and hided cash against the forced saving requests. The cash in trust by Joseon Trust Company, similar to a fixed bank deposit, was mainly used by the high-income bracket as it offered the best profitability among financial products considered to be national savings. However, they deposited a large amount of cash making loan accounts under the name of family members or dividing a large sum of money into small sums in multiple branches. This was to actively avoid interest income tax imposed on a large amount of cash, using loopholes of the law. Through these series of measures, the high-income bracket in Korea attempted to protect their assets as much as possible while cooperating with the Japanese colonial authority’s forced savings policy ; the Japanese Government-General of Korea, on the other hand, tacitly permitted the high-income bracket’s expedients to collect wartime funds.