Yoon Ja-young is in charge of articles translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times. She is interested in improving the newspaper through AI.
Government pushes ahead with resident tax hike
By Yoon Ja-young
The government will push ahead with its plan to double resident and automobile tax on commercial vehicles despite public opposition.
The Ministry of Security and Public Administration announced a plan to revise provincial tax codes, Monday, which include raising residential and automobile tax on commercial vehicles.
Currently, residents are charged different levels of tax dependent on where they live _ the lowest is 2,000 won and the highest 10,000 won. The revision aims at raising the minimum to 10,000 won and the maximum to 20,000 won in the next couple years.
It also plans to double the automobile tax levied on commercial passenger vehicles, trucks and special vehicles by 2017.
While hiking taxes, the government plans to scrap tax incentives. Tourist hotels, large hospitals and real estate funds won’t be offered the acquisition and registration tax cuts they had enjoyed for so long.
The ministry will hand in the revision to the National Assembly after running the announcement of revision bill until Oct. 7. When revising laws closely related with the people’s daily life, the government is obliged to announce the plan for a certain period of time.
A series of the tax hike plan by the government, including the cigarette tax, meanwhile, is facing criticism that it goes against President Park Geun-hye’s campaign pledge that new social welfare programs will be offered without any tax increase.