'Glass wallets' with no privacy

Benjamin Franklin is best known as one of the “Founding Fathers” in the United States. While poverty forced him to quit school at the age of 10, Franklin showed undivided passion for knowledge. He gained his reputation as a scientist by proving that lightening is an electric phenomenon when he flew a kite attached with wires on a cloudy day, which eventually led him to invent the lightning rod. He was highly respected also as a politician, given U.S. 100-dollar bill featuring Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was also an enlightened man who left numerous quotes, including “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

The basic principle of taxation is “levying when an income occurs.” In addition, there is another principle that stipulates that “all taxes shall be reported and paid directly by those who make earnings.” Still, this principle does not apply to salarymen, as their users deduct tax every month and pay to the National Tax Service for their employees. This is the so-called "withholding tax." While the payment by proxy is justified by “lifting the burdens of those who have to crunch in the numbers every year,” it still suggests an uncomfortable proverb “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Earned income tax paid by salaried employees hit the record at 31 trillion won last year, surpassing 30 trillion won for the first time. Not only did the government reaped by 3.9 trillion won, an increase of 14.6 percent year-on-year, but also exceeded its expectations by 1.8 trillion won, or 6.2 percent. While taxpayers may be surprised by the “whopping figure,” they will not be entirely satisfied by the government’s explanation that the increase was due to “higher nominal income and employment figures.” While commodity prices hit the ceiling, times are hard as many say “all but wages rose.”

Indeed, salarymen are not free from the government surveillance, which leverages companies as medium. Therefore, people become sarcastic and call themselves “glass wallets.” Strictly speaking, income also falls under the branch of privacy. However, we still have a long way to go for the salaried to enjoy “the right to privacy of all citizens shall not be infringed” stipulated as Article 17 of the Constitutional Law. As such, ordinary salarymen have given up their privacy in exchange of paying their dues and seed moneys for the government. So shouldn’t Korean president or National Tax Service head express their “gratitude” at least once a year to somewhat ease the public’s relative deprivation?