자동차 관련 취득세와 자동차세에 있어서 지방자치단체간 조세경쟁의문제점과 개선방안

Abstract

Municipalities compete to secure the source of local tax, exercising their rights to determine the tax rate, which is called ‘inter-municipal tax competition.’ The tax competition tends to be focused on mobile objects such as automobiles, vessels, aircrafts and machinery. Automobiles, inter alia, have been as much as a daily necessity, unlike other mobile objects, and thus make it easier to ignite inter-municipal tax competition and further cause serious problems; specifically, the inter-municipal tax competition may lead to the loss of local tax and also go against the principles of benefit principle tax export ban and actual taxation. Moreover, excessive tax competition is likely to make municipalities violate the local autonomy act. Some municipalities even overlook or abet the offences of vehicle lessors, aiming only to increase tax revenues, without public morals or responsibility as a law enforcement agency, and therefore contaminate autonomism. The solution is to impose a steady rate of tax on mobile objects including automobiles, e.g., acquisition tax or automobile tax, in order that the flexible rate may be ruled out and, by extension, to appoint the place for acquisition tax and automobile tax in line with actual taxation. Meanwhile, the inter-municipal tax competition is caused by a large gap in the deduction-reserve ratio. Accordingly, there is the need to minimize the gap and to reflect the variation of tax revenues, based on the flexible tax rate, in the calculation of the reference amount of financial revenue from local subsidy regardless of local tax item.