As Yeoya was unable to reach an agreement on corporate tax and education tax increases until the end, the two bills remained the original government bill. As a result, corporate tax will increase by 1 percentage point in all tax sections starting next year.
The next year's budget bill, which includes amendments to the corporate tax law, eventually increased the burden on companies due to the government bill. The core of the government bill is the restoration of the corporate tax rate reduced by the Yoon Seok-yeol government. From the current tax rate, progressive tax rates such as 10% of 200 million won or less, 20% of 200 million won to 20 billion won or less, 22% of 20 billion to 300 billion won or less, and 25% over 300 billion won are applied. In order to reduce the burden on small and medium-sized enterprises during the review process, the People's Power argued that the tax rate should be maintained for the tax section of △ 200 million won or less △ over 200 million won and 20 billion won or less, but it was not accepted.
The education tax, which was another issue, was also passed in accordance with the government bill. As a result, the education tax rate levied on the profits of financial and insurance companies will maintain the current 0.5% for revenue amounts of 1 trillion won or less, but will double to 1% for amounts over 1 trillion won.
There is criticism that this has increased the tax burden on companies. Rep. Park Su-yeong, the opposition secretary of the National Assembly Planning and Finance Committee, posted on Facebook that day, “When the Korea Executive Association asked the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a 'company with 300 or more employees' about next year's management tone, a whopping 41% answered austerity management and 30% answered maintaining the status quo,” and “You can't blame the company. “This is because the government and the Democratic Party are strangling companies by putting up proposals to raise corporate taxes due to lack of abuse of laws such as the Yellow Envelope Act, the Critical Accident Punishment Act, and the Commercial Code.”
In accordance with the amendments to the Tax Exemption Restrictions Act agreed upon by Yeoya, a special dividend income tax with a maximum tax rate of 30% will be applied to stock dividend income from high-dividend listed companies receiving from 2026. Unlike the previous government bill, which uniformly imposed a 35% tax rate on dividend income over 300 million won, the amendment lowered the highest tax rate to 25% and established a new section exceeding 5 billion won. According to the amendment, the tax section applies to △ 14% of 20 million won or less, 20% over 20 million won to 300 million won or less, 25% over 300 million won to 5 billion won or less, and 30% over 5 billion won.
