세법해석 사전답변제도의 도입효과

Abstract

This study examines the effects of the system of advance rulings, adopted by the National Tax Service (NTS) in 2008, from the perspective of applicants who have used the system. To accomplish the objectives above, this study examined theoretical backgrounds and previous studies through literature review and employed questionnaires to conduct an empirical analysis. The subjects of this study included executives and employees of companies and tax agents nationwide who used the system of advance rulings between 2008 and 2014, and a total of 294 questionnaires collected from the subjects were statistically treated for analysis. The results of the empirical analysis and the implications of this study are as follows. First, analysis of the effects of the relevant characteristics of advance ruling system users on their satisfaction and trust in national tax administration indicates that seven factors except for the factor of ability and properties, have significant effects. As for the characteristic of member, stronger commitment of top management to addressing unclear tax issues in advance and greater significance of the issues have bigger effects on users' satisfaction and trust in national tax administration. In addition, the results suggest a relatively low understanding of the system of advance rulings, which emphasizes the need for more systematic promotion of the system. As for the characteristics of organizational environment, the factor of internal environment has bigger effects than external environment on users' satisfaction and trust in national tax administration. This indicates that more conservative tax treatment and tougher internal control, including standardization of tax treatment, have more significant effects on users' satisfaction and trust in national tax administration. Unclear tax law interpretations by tax authorities also proved to have effects. In terms of the characteristic of possibility of use, the factor of the easiness of use influences users' satisfaction and trust in national tax administration more significantly than the factor of intention of use. This means that when applicants find it easy to use the system of advance rulings even without the help of experts and consider the use of system convenient enough to recommend the system to others, users' satisfaction and trust in national tax administration will increase. In terms of the last characteristic, results of handling, the results show that proactive handling of unclear tax issues with clear rulings by the NTS enhances users' satisfaction and trust in national tax administration. In addition, the results of this study suggest that users' satisfaction with the promptness of rulings is relatively low, so it needs to be improved. Second, the results of this study show that satisfaction of advance ruling system users has significant effects on their trust in national tax administration. This indicates that if the NTS addresses unclear issues regarding tax law interpretation through responsible reponses, users' satisfaction will increase, which will, in turn, enhance their trust in national tax administration. This study examined the mediating effects of users' satisfaction on the relationship between the relevant characteristics of users and their trust in national tax administration. The results show that it had mediating effects on seven factors except for the factor of ability of members, which suggests that users' satisfaction can be a crucial tool for enhancing trust in national tax administration. The NTS, therefore, needs to come up with plans to enhance users' satisfaction.