해외금융계좌신고제도 개선방안

Abstract

The Foreign Financial Account Report System(‘FFARS’) was introduced in Korea in 2011. The outcome of this new adoption after the first deadline of June the 30th in 2011 is proved not to be so impressive that the government is forced to amend it for the enhancement of its effectiveness. In this paper the researchers analyzed the acceptability and effectiveness of the current FFARS and suggested a few improvements. The FFARS is a tool to keep and strengthen the integrity of the residence-based taxation, which the Korean income tax system is based on. There are some hurdles in the current FFARS hindering its performance. The reportable foreign assets are limited within financial assets held in the financial institutions. There are no concrete official guidelines to determine a beneficial ownership of such assets. Nevertheless it has a good reason of its being, that it is indispensable to encourage the faithful tax filing of the taxpayers in general. People’s perception to the competence of tax auditors has to be changed for their good compliance of the FFARS. The benefits of voluntary reporting have to be expanded while the severer sanctions being put against incompliance. Alongside it basic terms such as ‘resident’ have to be defined in a concrete manner. The introduction of exit tax may help the government to keep the capital in our territory as well as to raise tax revenue. A temporary measure such as tax amnesty may be considered as an alternative to the current FFARS. However, it would be better to set it aside for a rainy day when the public budget undergoes a hard time.