Top 1% Interest Income Earners Made 17 Million KRW Annually from Interest Alone

Reference image / Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

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People in the top 1% of interest income earned an average of 17.1 million KRW annually from interest alone.

According to interest income percentile data provided by Statistics Korea and disclosed on the 6th by Yang Kyung-sook, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, 53,969,343 people reported interest income in 2022.

The total interest income they earned was 19.8739 trillion KRW, an increase of 4.5579 trillion KRW compared to 15.316 trillion KRW in 2021.

The average interest income per person was 368,000 KRW.

Interest income includes interest from savings and deposits, gains from savings-type insurance, interest and discounts from bonds or securities, profits from derivatives based on bonds, and non-operating loan profits.

The threshold for the top 0.1% of interest income in 2022 was 26.148 million KRW. This means one must earn more than 26 million KRW annually from interest to be in the top 0.1%.

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The total interest income of the top 0.1% was 3.81 trillion KRW, accounting for 19.2% of all interest income. Their average interest income per person was 70.59 million KRW.

The top 1% earned a total of 9.2339 trillion KRW in interest income, which was 46.5% of the total interest income. The average interest income per person was 17.1 million KRW.

The top 10% earned a total of 17.8256 trillion KRW in interest income, accounting for 89.7% of the total.

Assemblywoman Yang Kyung-sook stated, "Unearned income such as interest income is being pointed out as a cause of worsening polarization," and added, "The government should actively implement tax policies that ensure equitable income taxation."

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