Number of Workers with Annual Salary of Hundreds of Million Won Rises above 20,000

It was reported that the number of workers whose annual salary amounts to minimum 100 million won reached 21,000 in the year 2000. On the contrary, the number of people who do not have to pay tax among salaried workers also sharply increased. Therefore, the discrepancy of income among salaried workers becomes clear.

Such a fact was revealed yesterday in the `document on the present state of earned income tax standard per class`, the result of last year`s year-end statement that was put together by the National Tax Service (NTS).

- Increase of salaried workers whose annual salary amounts to minimum 100 million won = It was estimated that 21,000 people received minimum 80 million won, to whom the highest earned income tax, that is 40 percent, is applied based on the standard tax amount after subtracting various amount of deduction from the total wage. According to the NTS, in order to have the standard tax amount of minimum 80 million won, the annual salary needs to exceed 100 million won.

The number of annual salaried workers who receive minimum 100 million won was 7,000 in 1997, and 8,000 in 1998. However, the number sharply increased to 15,000 in 1999, and it increased by 6,000 last year.

Fund managers or founders of venture firms joined the rank of the high annual salaried workers, and the change in social perception that `chief executive officers (CEO) can receive high salary equal to their responsibility` also contributed to the trend.

Although the number of annual salaried workers who receive minimum 100 million won was only 0.4 percent of the total number of salaried workers, taxes they paid were 15.4 percent of the total amount taxes paid by the total number of salaried workers.

The number of salaried workers whose standard tax amount was 40 million won to 80 million won, to which 30 percent of tax rate is applied, was 90,000 (1.5 percent), and taxes paid by them amounted to 890.7 billion won (14.7 percent). The number of salaried workers whose standard tax amount was 10 million to 40 million won, to which tax rate of 20 percent is applied, was 1.767 million (29.8 percent), and taxes paid by them amounted to 3.4174 trillion won (56.2 percent).

Most of the salaried workers made maximum 10 million won, to which tax rate of 10 percent is applied, and the number of workers in this bracket was estimated to be 4.056 million (except those who do not need to pay taxes). The grade A income tax paid by them amounted to 833.3 billion won, 13.7 percent of the total grade A income tax.

Rae-Jeong Park iam@donga.com