The Historicity and Limitation of Gongbeop and Daedongbeop51)
Asian Tax Journal Vol. 16 No. 3 (2015), pp. 191-215
Abstract
The characteristic of Gongbeop lies in the fact that King Sejong performed the reform in person. In contrast, the kings who enforced Daedongbeop merely made a decision depending on the opinion of the Royal court. Therefore, Daedongbeop basically couldn’t be a systematic, specialized reform in comparison with Gongbeop. The tax revenue size in the early period of Joseon Dynasty was 100,000 seok in rice, which was merely the size of one fourth to one－fifth of the rice paddy & field tax. However, with the enforcement of Daedongbeop, the revenue from Daedong tax, aiming at expropriation for tax paid in kind, surpassed the rice paddy & field tax to increase by as much as five times the tax revenue in the early days. Gongbeop attempted at primary fairness based on the system of 6－Grade of Rice Paddy and Field, and also attempted at secondary fairness based on the system of 9－Grade of Good and Bad Harvest according to harvesting situations. In the circumstances where the on－site survey consequent on a good or bad harvest was abolished, Daedongbeop collected 12 mal of rice from all rice paddies and fields without distinction of rice paddy or field. It means another rice paddy & field tax was added to the existing rice paddy& field tax. Gongbeop was enacted through a lot of debates and tests lest that the phenomenon of ‘a growing gap between the haves and have－nots’ should arise. Contrastively, Daedongbeop incurred the phenomenon of a growing gap between the haves and have－nots’ from tax concentration on rice paddy and field, being a contributor to deepening the imbalance in wealth in the late of the Joseon Dynasty.
Keywords
- Gongbeop
- Daedongbeop
- Tax Reforms in the Joseon Dynasty Period