골프장 과세제도의 문제점과 개선방안

초록

With income growth and increasing favor of leisure activities, golf becomes much more popular than before and has substantiated its economic importance. However, treating golf as a spree of extravagant activity, the current tax laws levy high burden on golf and, as a result, are to blame for weakening the competitiveness of golf industry and acting as a barrier to entry into quality leisure. Focusing on real estate holding tax (property tax and comprehensive real estate holding tax, “REHT” hereafter) and individual consumption tax (“ICT” hereafter) of which the “sunset clause” deadline is in the public debate over whether it should be delayed, this study analyzes problems of those taxes and suggests practical plans to revise the current tax laws as below. As to REHT, excessive social regulations, which hardly correspond with economic development and the “golf economy” in Korea, are reflected and, consequently, golf courses are seriously discriminated against in taxation comparing with other sports facilities. To deal with those problems,the tax preferences for local private golf courses, which became effective in October 2008 and ended in December 2009, should be extended into the future and into private golf courses in metropolitan areas to magnify the economic impact of halted tax preferences and be more faithful to the “equality of tax burden principle”. As to ICT, the problem of excessive regulations, like in REHT, as well as the problem of irrational tax discrimination between private golf courses users and public golf courses users and the problem of delegated legislation contradicting the “principle of no taxation without law” deteriorate the current ICT law. Moreover, ICT itself is not so helpful as in raising tax revenues as it affects negative influences on national economy. To deal with those problems, the tax preferences for local private golf courses,which became effective in October 2008 and ended in December 2010,should be extended into following years and into private golf courses in metropolitan areas-in case of stepwise adoption, such extention might be first applied to foreign tourists. Additionally, the problem of improper delegation in ICT legislation could be settled by prescribing the scope of ICT liabilities in the enforcement decree of the current ICT law.

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