종교인 소득 과세반대논리에 대한 타당성 분석 및 소득세법 개선방향

초록

The clergy's income was not taxed without any explicit exemption clauses under the connivance or assistance of tax authorities in the past several decades. Implementation of the Income Tax Act amendments of 2015 was delayed with effect from January 1, 2018 apparently due to the tax resistance. Prior studies pointed out several issues including unfairness of taxation between clergies and general tax payers, and between low income clergies and high income clergies and also optional obligation of income tax withholding. The purpose of this study is to examine the ground of objections raised in the process of the enactment of the clegy's income tax law, which led to the amendments with those issues above. This study also compare the tax regime of religious entities in Germany with the Amendment of 2015. Furthermore, this study suggests improvement directions on related income tax laws so that taxation of the clergy’s income in Korea is settled effectively. Our findings include that the law makers focused on the introduction of taxation of clergy's income and considered the tax resistance from religious organizations. Our study was not able to find any validity at all to objections raised to the taxation of clergy's income. The comprehensive review of German tax system also clarified that the separation of church and state in the political system does not mean tax exemption of clergy and need to have a initial and continuing assessment as to whether various religious organizations serve public interests for the tax exemption. In particular, this study suggests the fundamental amendment on income tax law for which is needed in that the law should rule the clergy’s income to be earned income rather than other income. It seems that a future study on improvements of accounting transparency of religious organizations for effective settlement of clergy’s income taxation will be performed consistently.

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