Parties compromise on 2023 budget

Democratic Party of Korea Floor Leader Rep. Park Hong-keun (left) and People Power Party Floor Leader Rep. Joo Ho-young pose for a photo at the National Assembly on Thursday. (Yonhap)

Floor leaders of the ruling People Power Party and the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea have reached a compromise over the budget bill proposal of 638 trillion won ($499 billion) for next year.

The two parties are anticipated to pass the bill at the extraordinary plenary session of the National Assembly at 6 p.m. on Friday, with the amount reduced by nearly 5 trillion won, according to the floor leaders, a belated move as the deadline for the passage of the budget bill was Dec. 2.

The compromise unveiled on Thursday included plans to allocate 352.5 billion won for local gift vouchers and to add 660 billion won to help reduce borrowing costs of low-income families who are provided public rental housing.

The two parties also agreed to cut the government spending into half from the proposal on the operation of new government entities, such as the police bureau under the Interior Ministry designed to command the nation's police agency, and a special entity under the Justice Ministry dedicated to screening of high-ranking officials.

Alongside the budget bill, the two sides agreed to lower the corporate tax rate by 1 percentage point, regardless of the income of a company, a smaller tax relief compared with the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's proposal to lower it by 3 percentage points.

Both parties agreed to defer the implementation of taxation on financial income to those who own at least 1-billion-won worth of stocks of a certain company. Without the two-year deferral, the new taxation rule would have come into effect beginning in January.

By Son Ji-hyoung(consnow@heraldcorp.com)