Progressive Party criticizes reduction of local allocation tax in government budget... Call for reconsideration

(Jeonnam Gwangju = Yonhap News) Reporter Park Cheol-hong = The progressive Jeonnam Gwangju Unified City Party issued a statement on the 7th, urging a full reexamination, saying, “The government reduced the amount of increase in local grant taxes by transferring part of the increase in domestic taxes in the 2027 budget to the future response fund.”

Citing an analysis by the National Living Research Institute, the Progressive Party claimed, "If there had been no transfer from the Future Response Fund, the ordinary grant tax could have reached 98.1 trillion won in 2027, but the local grant tax was allocated to 68.5 trillion won in the government plan."

He continued, “As a result, the ordinary grant tax to be received by the integrated city is expected to decrease by approximately 4.4 trillion won,” and pointed out, “Changing the calculation method without sufficient consultation with local governments runs counter to the principles of local decentralization and balanced development.”

The Progressive Party also called for calculating the local allocation tax according to the existing method in line with the increased tax revenue and passing an amendment to the Local allocation tax law to increase the statutory rate of the local allocation tax from the current 19.24% to 22.24%.