1% of companies pay 82% of corporate tax. Can this biased structure be corrected? - Korean media

In South Korea, a biased structure in which a small number of large corporations bear most of the corporate tax burden remains.
According to the tax return, the 105 corporations that made up the top 0.01% of income (net profit) paid 19.2476 trillion won (approximately 2.4 trillion yen) in corporate tax last year, which was 58.1649 trillion won (approximately 2.4 trillion yen) of the total corporate tax revenue.
This percentage has fluctuated between 30% and 40% in recent years. Looking at the scope more broadly, the top 0.1% of corporations (1,058 companies)
34.4917 trillion won (approximately 3.66 trillion yen), the top 1% of corporations (10,584 companies) had 47.6042 trillion won (approximately 5.6 trillion yen), and the top 10% of corporations (105,849 companies) had 5
They paid 5.8912 trillion won (approximately 5.94 trillion yen) in corporate tax, accounting for 59%, 82%, and 96% of total corporate tax revenue, respectively.
As such, while the top 10% pay almost all of the corporate tax, the proportion of tax-exempt corporations that do not pay any corporate tax exceeds half of all corporations.
Of the 1,058,498 corporations that filed corporate tax returns last year, 571,293 were tax-exempt corporations, accounting for 54%. These corporations were in the red or had lower net profits than the
The proportion of tax-exempt corporations has increased for seven consecutive years, from 46% in 2017 to last year.
In summary, South Korea's corporate tax has a narrow tax base and is structured to concentrate the tax burden on a small number of large corporations that make a lot of money.
Therefore, the tax rate is inevitably higher than that of other OECD member countries. Korea's corporate tax rate is 24.2% as of 2023, based on the effective tax rate actually borne by companies, and is the highest in the OECD.
The highest corporate tax rate (including local taxes) applied to major large companies with large net profits is 26.4%, which is 2.8% higher than the OECD average. Furthermore, there are concerns about a collapse in tax revenues.
If the South Korean government were to face such a situation, it may raise the corporate tax rate. The South Korean government recently raised the corporate tax rate by 1%.
Raising the tax rate while leaving the corporate tax base-biased structure unchanged is problematic from the perspective of sustainability.
This is because it is tantamount to penalizing large corporations that are competing fiercely in the global market. Of course, it is not easy to improve the tax base bias structure.
The national government should actively adopt policies to reduce tax exemptions and reductions, strengthen corporate profitability, and broaden the tax base.