법인의 유보금에 대한 간주배당 과세제도도입은 과연 타당한가?

Abstract

Taxation on corporate reserves deemed dividends aims to prevent avoidance of tax according to the difference between corporate tax rates and income tax rates and to raise taxation equity with individual businesses. Accordingly, because the effective tax rates between the corporate tax and income tax which are imposed on the earned income show no great difference, any problem will not occur in terms of taxation equity. Also, the deemed dividends recognized in existing tax laws are those deemed on the basis of economic profit actually similar to cash dividends, but the taxation on corporate reserves deemed dividends imposes tax in advance on the dividend income to be paid in the future, that is, imposes tax on unrealized income in spite of the fact that economic profit actually doesn’t revert to shareholders, etc. Because taxation on such unrealized income violates actual as well as formal principle of no taxation without law, the relevant system is not suitable theoretically and logically. In practice, the taxation causes following problems: finances for dividends due to lack of cash, excessive tax payment-related expenses of a corporation with respect to assuming withholding obligation, title trusting of shares, etc. Therefore, the introduction of taxation of corporate reserves deemed dividends is not appropriate from the theoretical, logical and practical viewpoints, and it would be proper and suitable to legislate so that corporate tax will be additionally imposed. In order to minimize damage to newly founded corporations, etc., it is considered necessary to set the corporations and the minimum limit of income amount subject to the taxation.