복지포인트 관련 세제 개선방안 연구

Companies have implemented various corporate welfare plans according to the changes of the times in order to enhance the welfare of workers. In that process, flexible benefit plans were introduced to overcome the limitations of traditional welfare systems and reasonably meet workers' demand for labor welfare. As for the issue of recognizing the wage nature of welfare points, which are used as one of the flexible benefit plans, there has been conflict of interest between employers and workers, generating small and large frictions among related parties. The Supreme Court's decision in 2019 on whether to recognize welfare points as wage was significant in that it has cleared the disputes over the issue. However, the court’s ruling triggered a new discussion on whether welfare points fall under taxable earned income. Welfare points paid to public officials of government institutions have not been taxed, whereas welfare points paid to executives and employees of public or private companies have been taxed. So the problem of violating the equity of taxation was raised because different standards have been applied to the income tax of employees depending on the nature of the institution that provides welfare points. If the nature of flexible benefit plans is substantially the same, it is necessary to prepare related regulations to prevent unnecessary discrimination by consistently handling them in taxation. It would be appropriate to stipulate that economic gains from the flexible benefit plans should be taxed in principle, and tax exemption should be applied only if the legal requirements are met. It would be desirable to specifically and clearly regulate the tax treatment of welfare points by preparing a separate provision in the 「Income Tax Law」 that can grant substantial tax benefits to flexible benefit plans. Tax benefits of flexible benefit plans should not be unreasonably applied or discriminated according to the type of company to which the employee belongs or the type of employment within the company. As most of the companies in Korea are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), it is necessary to prepare separate legal regulations to encourage SMEs to introduce flexible benefit plans and contribute to the widespread adoption of those plans. Since both taxable and non-taxable items in welfare expenses are included in the flexible benefit plans, it is necessary to revise related regulations so that taxable and non-taxable items can be clearly divided and operated according to the actual nature of welfare expenses. This study has a great significance in that it comprehensively reviews the related tax law regulations, and presents specific improvement plans that can solve the problems of the welfare points-related tax system by focusing on the taxation of welfare points.