원천징수제도의 개선방안에 관한 연구

Abstract

The withholding tax system is that a person paying incomes prescribed by the tax laws is subject to withhold the income tax on salaries, benefits, interests, pensions and dividends and to pay it to the government. In turn, the effect of the tax payment is attributed to its tax obliger. Through this system, not only a tax collecting cost collection cost can be reduced but also a tax evasion can be prevented using collected taxation materials and the government expenditures can be established in advance by the utilization of its documentary taxation. However, regardless of his or her intention, the tax obligation is handed over to the withholding agent with economical and time consuming burdens and the agent will be penalized by an additional tax, if he or she fails to withhold tax at source or fails to pay the tax within the payment period. In this paper, a number of problems of the withholding tax system are examined and their possible solutions are discussed in order to show a rational direction to develop the withholding tax system much further. Firstly, the object of the withholding tax should be adjusted. Although there are no financial profits in cases like constructive bonuses, deemed dividends and accrued dividends by a surplus appropriation, the agent is still subject to pay the tax. This may be contrary to the original intent of the withholding tax system and the tax on imputed time of payment should be excluded. Secondly, cooperation cost for the payment of taxes should be minimized. Regarding to the additional taxation on insincere withholding tax, it is at first identified that who and how much is legally responsible for and that person should be penalized according to the degree of the responsibility. Moreover, unlikely other taxes, the withholding tax dose not require a tax collecting cost of the tax office and that saving should be allocated to be benefited by the agent. Thirdly, the tax incentive of the electronic filing tax should be equally distributed. In order to establish the electronic filing tax system, the government gives incentives for those who file tax bases electronically. However, same incentives should be also given to taxpayers whose electronic filing tax is made by their tax agents rather than themselves. Fourthly, measures to prevent possible dishonestly filed tax returns by tax obligators should be introduce. The withholding tax of salary incomes is finalized by the year-end adjustment. For tax refund, tax obligators hand in related documents to the withholding agent, but there is alway a possibility that the document may be tampered. It is more efficient that the tax office sets up a system to send relevant documents directly to the agent electronically. Fifthly, the process of the withholding tax should be simplified. Under the existing system, the taxation's objects are too wide and complex that may differ from the original aim of its laws. The responsibility of withholding agents should be minimized and its process and method should also be modified to be simple and clear. In conclusion, the withholding tax system is based on the mutual interests and benefits among the tax office, withholding agents and obligators. In order to maintain this system efficiently, a legislative consideration should be taken to share the benefit of the tax system equally among them without imposing a heavy burden on one member.