Direct taxes collected by the state made up a record 55.3 percent of all dues collected in 2016, official data showed Sunday.
The rise comes as the government reformed its tax credit rules on income and transfer taxes, the finance ministry said. It said the percentage of direct taxes to overall revenue earnings has been on the rise for the past three years.
(Yonhap)
A rise in direct taxes generally reflects a more balanced form of taxation and better distribution of wealth.
Last year, the ministry said that its tax earnings hit 230 trillion won ($202.3 billion), excluding the education tax and the special tax for rural development, with direct taxes, such as income and corporate taxes, and transfer taxes like estate and gift taxes, reaching 127.3 trillion won. Indirect taxes accounted for 102.6 trillion won or around 44.6 percent of the total. Indirect taxes are sales and value added taxes, as well as various goods and service taxes.
Authorities said the rise in direct taxes follows an increase in taxable income earnings.
The total amount of income taxes collected reached 68.5 trillion won last year, up 7.7 trillion won from 2015. This made up 29.8 percent of all dues collected by the government in the one-year period.
Corporate taxes, which is another key part of direct taxation, made up 22.7 percent of the total. The percentage of corporate taxes collected had dipped from 2014 to 2015 before making a comeback last year.
Besides these two types of taxes, VAT, which has a flat rate of 10 percent, made up 26.9 percent of all state earnings in 2016, up slightly from the year before, the government data showed. (Yonhap)