Park Min-soo, 40, an office worker, said his salary increased last year but somehow felt like he was left with less.
“I did the calculating myself,” he said. “After income tax, monthly premiums for national pension, state-run health insurance and other deductions, the extra raise meant essentially nothing.”
What bothers him more is that some people working part-time or in temporary jobs aren’t paying the income tax at all.
“I heard on the news that about a third of the workers are not paying earned income tax at all. I understand that they are low income. They may say life is hard, but it is for everybody else, too. Not paying any? It’s just not right. I can’t shake the feeling that the system is punishing full-time workers while letting others off easy. It’s demoralizing.”
Similarly, Choi Eun-jung, 45, said the tax brackets haven’t changed much over the past two decades.
“Inflation eats up my wages, yet many salaried workers automatically are moved into higher tax brackets. It’s frustrating to think about what should be rightfully mine is taken from me only because tax bracket revision fails to keep up. I sometimes joke that working harder only means we pay more taxes — it doesn’t feel like progress, it feels like a trap.”
Park and Choi are among many salaried workers in Korea frustrated by their income tax rising and offsetting wage hikes due to stalled tax bracket revisions.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy, income taxes from salaried workers reached an all-time high of 68.4 trillion won ($47 billion) last year, up 12.1 percent from 61 trillion won in 2024.
Over the past decade, the share of income tax as part of total national tax revenue rose to 18 percent, up from 12 percent. This jump outpaced other tax categories.
While corporate and value-added taxes fluctuated with economic conditions, income tax steadily increased, largely due to stagnant tax brackets that fail to keep pace with inflation and wage growth.
Source: Korea Times News
