租稅制度 改革의 政治經濟學

Political Economy of Tax Reform

The business of reforming the tax system is quite complicated since so many things have to be taken into consideration to come up with feasible and viable reform proposals. One could not get much help from existing literature on tax reform, which is almost without exception too abstract to be used as practical guidelines. The most difficult part in the business of tax reform is to figure out the ways of making a sensible compromise with those who oppose the changes in the tax system. Even quite reasonable reform proposals which seem to have good potentials of improving social welfare are doomed to failure if they do not succeed in this political process. This tendency is especially pronounced in Korea where political system is not mature enough to deal with the conflict of interests in an efficient as well as equitable manner. Although there have been a lot of talks about the reform of the tax system these days, not much progress has been made in actuality. A virtual consensus has been made as to what should be done to improve the current tax system in Korea. Almost everyone agrees that the current tax system leaves much to be desired in terms of equity in the distribution of tax burden. It is no secret in the Korean society that tax evasion is rampant among the rich, especially among high-income professionals and self-employed persons. But their political influence is so strong that the efforts to make the tax system more equitable have met strong resistance at every step in the process of deliberating tax reform. This paper focuses on this political aspect of tax reform business, and suggests some ways to improve the prospect of welfare improving tax reform.