Choi Sang-mok: "No Wealth Tax Cuts in Yoon Government... Tax Cuts for Domestic Consumption and Investors"

"Admitting Insufficient Forecast for Economic Growth
But Not Due to Tax Cuts"

Many seats were empty during the government questioning session held at the National Assembly on the 22nd. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

Choi Sang-mok, Deputy Prime Minister for Economy and Minister of Strategy and Finance, stated, "The Yoon Seok-yeol administration has never implemented tax cuts for the wealthy. There are only tax cuts to stimulate domestic demand and investor tax cuts for investors."

Deputy Prime Minister Choi made this remark on the 23rd during a National Assembly interpellation session when Kim Kyung-hyup of the Democratic Party criticized that tax revenue shortages occurred due to tax cuts for the wealthy.

When Representative Kim pointed out, "Isn't it true that the tax cut benefits are concentrated on large corporations and super-rich individuals?" Deputy Prime Minister Choi rebutted, "That is not the case."

He explained, "Tax support is provided to encourage large corporations to expand investments. If corporate investments increase and exports grow, doesn't that create employment? Then the benefits go to the workers."

In response to the question, "Do you still believe in the trickle-down effect?" he said, "I do not consider that to be the trickle-down effect."

Regarding the approximately 56 trillion won shortfall in tax revenue last year compared to government forecasts, Deputy Prime Minister Choi also drew a line, saying it was not due to tax cuts. He added, "We acknowledge that there are shortcomings in our tax revenue forecasts. However, the decrease in tax revenue was due to asset markets and corporate profits declining more than expected, and the effect of tax cut-related system improvements was about 10%."

In response to criticism that the economic growth rate has declined under the Yoon Seok-yeol administration, he said, "If I mention external conditions again, it might be seen as making excuses, but the past two years have seen unprecedented difficulties in the global economy. However, from this year onward, the growth rate forecast is higher than that of other OECD countries."

He emphasized, "Household debt, real estate project financing (PF), and fiscal sustainability issues had accumulated significantly before the Yoon administration took office. I am not saying this to blame any government, but the environment was difficult at the time of inauguration. Therefore, we are still managing those issues now."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.