현행 원천징수제도의 문제점 및 개선방안―해외 주요국의 입법례에 대한 분석을 중심으로―

The withholding tax system is designed to ensure the convenience of tax collection. As of 2022, it will account for about 92 trillion won out of about 384 trillion won in national tax revenue and will constitute a significant part of the current tax administration. Not only in our country, but also in major foreign countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and France, the withholding tax system is commonly used in connection with income tax. This system plays a central role in the tax administration of various countries, not only by securing tax revenue in advance, but also by performing the function of automatic adjustment of the economy. The withholding tax system essentially originated from the necessities of tax policy (historically, it was designed during the Second World War for the early collection of taxes), so it's true that the specific operation of withholding tax varies greatly according to the circumstances of each country. However, there are common features in the withholding tax systems of various countries：(1) the system is applied only to labor income and pension income among various sources of income, (2) to ensure the effectiveness of the system, penalties such as surcharges and criminal penalties are applied in cases of non-compliance by withholding agents, and (3) efforts are made to link withholding tax with electronic tax administration systems. The purpose of this article was to provide a broad overview of the operation of withholding taxes in major foreign countries, which had not been extensively studied, in order to derive implications for the domestic system. As a result, various measures were identified that could be legislatively considered in the current tax system, such as the Form W-4 reporting system and the daily/weekly/monthly payment system in the United States, the Real Time Information (RTI) transmission system and the Security Provision Order system in the United Kingdom, the conditions for imposing surcharges on withholding agents in Germany (intent or gross negligence), and the DNS and PASRAU systems in France. In addition, the article aimed to argue points such as the lack of foreign legislative examples regarding the irrationality of withholding on normative income (e.g. deemed dividends), which has been the subject of much criticism in both academic and practical circles. Based on the legislative examples from various countries, this report suggests the introduction of a system for withholding agents to submit preliminary data, the establishment of a real-time information transmission system for the early identification of tax revenue sources, the reduction of the income subject to withholding, the improvement of the conditions for imposing surcharges on withholding agents, and the use of early payment and security order systems. It is hoped that this article will serve as a basis for improvements to the withholding tax system in line with global standards.