Serious 'Polarization' Among Professionals... 1 in 5 Lawyers Earned Less Than 400 a Month

Analysis of Last Year's VAT Filings
Top Income Professional: Patent Attorney

Income polarization is also evident among major professional groups such as lawyers and accountants.

On the 7th, the office of Park Seong-hoon, a member of the People Power Party on the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee, analyzed the '2023 Value-Added Tax (VAT) Filing and Payment Amounts' submitted by the National Tax Service and presented these results. In this survey, doctors were excluded from the statistics due to VAT exemption on medical services.

[Image source=Getty Images]

According to the analysis, the taxable base for lawyers last year totaled 8.7227 trillion KRW. This amount represents income after excluding various tax exemptions and deductions. The total number of filings was 9,045 cases (combined corporate and individual). The average taxable base for lawyers was 964 million KRW, with individuals averaging about 450 million KRW and corporations 2.27 billion KRW. The top 10% of lawyers accounted for 905 cases with a combined taxable base of 6.7437 trillion KRW, representing 77.3% of the total. Conversely, 22% of all filings reported less than 4 million KRW per month on average. These cases included 1,807 individual and 214 corporate filings, totaling 2,021 cases. Additionally, there were 697 cases (616 individual and 81 corporate) reporting zero taxable base, indicating no sales at all.

The photo is not related to the specific content of the article. [Image source=Pixabay]

The accounting industry also experienced severe income polarization comparable to that of lawyers. Last year, accountants filed 2,190 VAT cases with a taxable base of 5.9671 trillion KRW. Among these, the top 10% (219 cases) accounted for 4.7594 trillion KRW, or 79.8% of the total. The concentration of the top 10% among accountants was slightly higher than that of lawyers, but the number of filings reporting less than 48 million KRW annually (4 million KRW monthly) was relatively low at 9.8%, or 214 cases.

Similarly, architects and real estate appraisers saw the top 10% dominate around 70% of the market. Among architects, the top 10% held 7.7487 trillion KRW of the total taxable base of 10.8036 trillion KRW last year, accounting for 71.7%. For real estate appraisers, the top 10% taxable base was 799.1 billion KRW, representing 68.7% of the total 1.1629 trillion KRW.

Looking at income by professional category, patent attorneys ranked first with about 100 million KRW more than lawyers. The taxable base for patent attorneys (individual basis) was 540 million KRW last year, the highest among eight professional categories. This was followed by ▲lawyers at 449 million KRW ▲accountants at 444 million KRW ▲customs brokers at 330 million KRW ▲tax accountants at 329 million KRW ▲architects and judicial scriveners each at 153 million KRW ▲and real estate appraisers at 106 million KRW.