Total of 909 Businessmen Earn More Than 600 Million Won Per Year

The number of businessmen who are paid more than 600 million won per one year is 909.

The National Health Insurance Corporation disclosed on June 28 that “according to the result assessed from the income data of 2002 handed in by the National Tax Service, there were 909 people who earned more than 600 million won per year that includes bonuses and a variety of allowances.”

In a detailed breakdown, the annual salaries of the 909 are made up of 722 people who are paid between 600 million to 1.29 billion won, 98 between 1.29 to 1.94 billion won, 43 between 1.94 to 2.58 billion won, and 46 more than 2.58 billion won.

As of 2002, the average amount of annual salary among businessmen registered to the NHIC is 258.2 million won.

The NHIC assumes that most of these super-highly paid businessmen are engaged in specialized occupations such as executive members of conglomerates and patent attorneys.

Currently, it is designated that for those with monthly incomes more than 508 million won, their monthly health insurance fee is set at 2,138,680 won regardless of one’s salary amount.

Based on this data, the new insurance fee system development team under jurisdiction of the committee for improving health insurance of the Ministry of Health and Welfare is considering increasing the upper limit line of the insurance fee.

Tae-Hoon Lee jefflee@donga.com