Professional Workers in Arrears with National Pension

One of five professional workers such as medical doctor and lawyer are in defaulted of their national pension.

The National Pension Corporation (NPC) submitted to Rep. Kim Hong-Shin (Grand National Party) the parliamentary investigation result that the 22.5 percent (8,002) of 35,534 workers of 12 professional occupations such as medical doctor, lawyer, dentist, herb doctor, patent attorney and architect have defaulted in paying for their national pension bills amounting 6.7 billion won as of August.

The national pension defaulters were largest among the medical doctors (1,965), followed by the dentists (1,922), the architects (1,662), the herb doctors (1,273), the tax auditors (253) and the lawyers (247).

Among the national pension defaulters, the long-term defaulters were 2,816 (35.2 percent). In particular, the 3.4 percent (1,209) of the total professional workers never paid their national pension bill since they joined the national pension plan. The figures are as follows: architects (376), medical doctors (254), dentists (209), herb doctors (168), tax auditors (47) and lawyers (37).

Meanwhile, the 4.5 percent (1,548) of the total professional workers reported that their monthly incomes were under one million won, and 1,004 workers were exempt from the payment because they were classified as non-income earners. This shows that there has been problem in tracking the incomes of the professional workers.

Rep. Kim Hong-Shin said, ``There can be the temporary default in payment due to the occupation change or the commencement of the business, but the long-term failure of payment and the false income report (under one million won) are unacceptable. It is an urgent matter to find out the exact incomes of the pension payment violators.``

Jung Young-Gwan yongari@donga.com