Tax revenue grows on rising income, consumption

Korea’s tax revenue grew significantly from a year earlier in the first two months of the year, partly due to an increase in income and consumer spending, a government report showed Tuesday.

National tax revenue came to some 42.7 trillion won ($37.2 billion) in the January-February period, up 10.9 trillion won from the same period last year, according to the monthly financial report published by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

The two-month tally represents 19.1 percent of the government’s annual target of 222.9 trillion won. The ratio of collected tax income to annual target also grew from 14.7 percent during the same period last year.

“Income tax revenue gained 2.8 trillion won from a year earlier, partly on a rise in the number of people employed and their nominal wages,” the ministry said in a press release.

In the first two months of the year, income tax revenue amounted to 13.9 trillion won, while revenue from value added tax came to 13.6 trillion won, up 4.8 trillion won from a year earlier.

The rise in tax revenue helped boost the government’s overall revenue, which includes non-tax revenue such as income from state-run funds.

Overall government income came to 65.9 trillion won in the two months ended Feb. 29, up 11 trillion won from the same period last year.

Its overall expenditure also grew from 64.1 trillion won to some 68 trillion won over the cited period.

“The government posted a deficit in its balance, but mostly because it frontloaded its spending as part of efforts to help revitalize the economy,” the ministry said, also noting the amount of the deficit shrank from 9.1 trillion won to 2.1 trillion won over the cited period.

Meanwhile, the government said the country’s national debt came to 576.6 trillion won as of end-February, up 10.5 trillion won from a month earlier. From the end of 2015, the February tally marks a 20 trillion won increase. (Yonhap)