상속,증여세제의 구조적 개선방안에 관한 연구 = A Study on the Structural Scheme for the Improvement of Inheritance and Donation Taxes System

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The inheritance tax itself is not an essential tax justifiable logically as a matter of course. Many advanced nations have already repealed the inheritance tax or tend to replace it with the capital gain tax. Canada, Australia, etc., have already replaced the inheritance tax with the capital gain tax, while Sweden, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, etc., have repealed the inheritance tax. Even the United States is expected to repeal the inheritance tax in 2010. The essence of the inheritance taxation involves the ideology of fairness. However, the ideology of fairness has never been realized with the inheritance tax in the history of Korea as well as the world. For its function of redistributing the wealth is poor. Actually, the richest people can evade the inheritance tax easily, while the small & medium asset owners are affected fatally by the inheritance or the donation tax. Moreover, various economic inefficiencies due to the inheritance cannot be ignored. The inheritance and donation taxes conflicting much with such tax principles as sufficient tax revenues, fair and efficient taxations can hardly find their grounds only because of such reasons. Inheritance and donation taxes must be the unreasonable taxes levied on the simple transfer of the wealth which was once taxed when it was created before. It is a serious problem that the capital gains obtained during the period of unpaid transfer of the wealth are not taxed permanently, which has known the violation of the principle of the horizontal fair taxation. Anyway, it should be avoided to solve by means of inheritance tax law and administration the various problems which should be solved by expanding the income tax or normalizing the capital gain tax. Moreover, it is also necessary to present a road map for diversified researches and policies required to construct a tax infra to abolish the inheritance tax and convert it into the capital gain tax in a long term. This study suggested the short-term reform measures for the current inheritance and donation tax systems and presented some policy alternatives to repeal the inheritance tax and convert it into the capital gain tax in a longer term. First, the complete comprehensive law might well be abused because it allows for tax officials` unlimited analogic interpretations and wider discretion. It needs to be converted into an enumerative one to ensure the principles of legal stability and predictability. Second, the estate tax type violates the ability-to-pay principle, less conducing to distribution of the wealth. Accordingly, it needs to be converted into an estate acquisition tax in harmony with such policy goals. Third, regarding the provisions about donation of the insurance payments not befitting the principle of the free contracts, it is necessary to amend the Donation Tax Code to abolish the donation tax for the donations of the profits caused by lower- or higher-priced transfer and for the donations of the profits caused by listing the unlisted stocks and for the donations of the profits caused by a real estate development after taxation, all of which should be taxed with the capital gain tax or some of which may evade the capital gain tax permanently. In addition, it is also necessary to abolish the provision about the donation of the profits due to unpaid use of the real estates, because it might result in dual taxations by Income Tax Code. Fourth, the nominal trusts should not be punished with the donation tax, but the relevant provisions should be based on estimation. Namely, the nominal trusters should be punished as tax evaders according to Tax Crime Punishment Act, while the nominal trustees should be punished as risky tax evaders. Fifth, it is necessary to abolish the inheritance tax system posing the problems such as head-on conflict with the tax principles, dual taxations and the permanent tax evasion of the capital gains during the period of the unpaid transfer, and thereby, convert it into the capital gain tax system.