우리나라 相續課稅體系의 改編試論

On the Reform of the Taxation of Intergenerational Wealth Transfers in Korea

This paper attempts to identify and evaluate issues to be improved in Korea’s current system of wealth transfer taxation. Some of the important suggestions emphasized in this paper regarding the reform of wealth transfer taxation in Korea are as follow. First, current estate and gift taxes should be replaced by a comprehensive inheritance type tax system, so that the tax can more easily be designed to conform to the ability-to-pay principle and the unfair tax treatment between inter vivos transfers and death transfers be corrected. Next, regarding inter-spousal transfers, the deduction or exemption amount should be enlarged to reflect the contribution of the transferee in accumulating the transferred wealth. In the principle that transfer taxes should be levied once in every generation, measures to prevent tax avoidance through generation skipping should be introduced. Finally, a proposal was made to shut the loopehole of avoiding capital gairs tax by a death transfer.