A Citizen Should Pay Tax of 3,000,000 Won

National budget for 2003 financial year decided with 111.7 trillion won increased by 5.5% compared to this year. A person should pay more than 3 million won including national tax and local tax, so tax rate on GNP per capita increased to 22.6% that is the highest tax rate historically.

Government opened National Administration meeting at 24th and decided the bill of 2003 budget and will submit to National Assembly in the early of the next month.

The amount of budget of 111.7 trillion won is bigger than that of this year of 109.6 trillion won including a supplementary budget for flood disaster by 1.9%.

Government will stop issuing national bonds that has been done since IMF, so keep balance budget without deficit.

According to the items, the largest portion of budget will be expended on education with 24.4 trillion won for increasing number of teachers and introduction of free education for secondary schools.

Other main items are ▽payments for public officers 22.62 trillion won ▽defense budget 17.4 trillion won ▽SOC extension 16.76 trillion won ▽social welfare 10.92 trillion won etc.

Even the budget for the payment of public officers increases by 8.5%, but he growth rate of the payment per capita is 5.5% considering the increase of the number.

Government estimated nominal economic growth rate at 8-9%, and decided amount of revenue of 103.2 trillion won by increasing of 10%. Other revenue (non-tax revenue) will be 8.5 trillion won by decreasing 7.3 trillion won.

So a citizen is expected to pay 3,000,0521 won compared to 2,710,00 won (estimated) in this year.

Chang Seung-woo, Minister of Ministry of Planning & Budget, explained, “The budget is focused on increasing investment for future, and improving the quality of social welfare. Additionally maintaining balanced budget is brought to a focus by stopping the issue of national bonds first for last 6 years.”

Kwang-Hyun Kim Kwang-Am Cheon kkh@donga.com iam@donga.com