Tax revenue estimates, income off by more than 50 trillion won between 2021 and 2025, audit finds

Differences between the government's tax revenue estimates and the actual receipts amounted to more than 50 trillion won ($37.8 billion) annually over the past five years as outdated models were used to forecast the revenues, the state auditor said Tuesday.

The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) conducted an audit into the government's fiscal management and found that the average difference between the estimates and the actual income amounted to 51.5 trillion won between 2021 and 2025.

The agency blamed the large discrepancies on the use of past corporate income statistics even when corporate earnings were expected to fall due to sharp changes in global economic conditions, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine. It also cited the failure to properly reflect the impact of tax law revisions.

The BAI advised the Ministry of Finance and Economy to come up with measures to develop realistic estimation models.

Yonhap