Factors Affecting the Attitudes of South Koreans toward Unification and their Willingness to Pay the Unification Tax

Aside from the emotional support for unification in Korea, the individual economic burden can cause a negative attitude toward unification and, consequently, research that simultaneously considers these two conflicting aspects is needed. This study analyzes the extent to which the recognition of the tax system and economic and demographic characteristics affect public attitudes toward the unification tax and the acceptable burden. The empirical results of the study are as follows. First, we confirm that an individual’s perception of the fairness of the tax burden affects people’s agreement with the unification tax and the level of an acceptable burden. Therefore, recovering the trust of taxpayers is important for improving the perception of the unification tax. Second, we confirm that when people accept the necessity of the tax burden for items such as welfare expenditure, agreement with the unification tax and the level of an acceptable burden rise. This finding implies that it would be easier to secure unification finances if the government persuaded people of the need to unify. Third, apart from agreement with unification, the effects of individual factors on the level of an acceptable unification tax burden differ. This result shows that despite high psychological support for unification, anti-unification sentiment can be created when the individual burden is materially considered.