Public Project Charges Top 10 Trillion Won Last Year

Public project charges, one form of substantial sub tax, topped 10 trillion won for the first time ever last year.

Business circle claim that sub taxes should be cut, saying, “The government promised to straighten out various public project charges when the Basic Law on Public Project Charges Management took effect in 2002. However, sub taxes including public project charges have been skyrocketing annually, putting a strain on businesses and households.”

Public project charges are sub taxes imposed on individuals, enterprises, or interest parties who benefit from public projects, for the purpose of financing the projects.

The Ministry of Planning and Budget report titled, “A Comprehensive Report on Public Project Charges Management 2004” submitted to the State Council on Tuesday reported that the government collected public project charges of about 10.04 trillion won last year for 102 purposes. The amount marked a 9.3 percent increase from about 9.18 trillion won in 2003.

Public project charges of electric power industries were the largest amount with around 1.07 trillion won, followed by those of oil importation sales with about 1.02 trillion won, public health improvements with 806.1 billion won, and environment improvements with 524.7 billion won. Public project charges were first introduced in 1961, and last year was the first year that the amount surpassed 10 trillion won. The total amount of the charges was no more than 4.85 trillion won until 2000, but the amount has been growing dramatically since 2001 with 7.09 trillion won in 2001, 7.83 trillion won in 2002, and 9.18 trillion won in 2003.

Byong-Ki Lee eye@donga.com