As the stock market boomed last year due to the booming stock market by individual investors called the’Donghak Ant Movement’, it was found that the remuneration of employees at securities companies increased and the stock exchange tax collected by the government also increased significantly. A securities company with an average annual salary of over 200 million won came out, and thanks to the stock exchange tax, the government, in desperate need of securing tax revenue, can take a sigh.
According to the Financial Investment Association on the 21st, the average salary of five large securities companies with equity capital of 5 trillion won or more, including KB Securities, Mirae Asset Daewoo, Samsung Securities, Shinhan Investment & Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, was 139.37 million won last year. Considering that the average salary in 2019 was around 116.5 million won, it has increased by about 20% in one year.
It is analyzed that last year’s domestic stock market was booming due to an investment craze, and an increase in the performance of the securities industry led to an increase in employee performance pay.
As of December 30, 2019, the KOSPI reached only 2197.67, but as of the end of last year, it rose to 2873.47. The new index for the year has risen 31%. According to Kiwoom Securities on the day, the net operating income of five major domestic securities companies, including Samsung Securities Mirae Asset Daewoo, is expected to increase from 1.8 trillion won in 2017 to 1.76 trillion won this year.
The average annual salary of foreign securities companies was overwhelmingly high. For example, Morgan Stanley Securities earned an average salary of 370,53 million won per person, and Merrill Lynch Securities was 30.8 million won. Goldman Sachs Securities also amounted to 314.79 million won.
Among the domestic securities companies, there were also a number of securities companies whose average annual salary exceeded 200 million won. Meritz Securities’ average employee salary last year surpassed 200 million won to 231.1 million won, a 29% increase from the previous year. As of last year, Meritz Securities had 869 contract employees, much more than regular employees (542). It is known that the proportion of professional contract workers is high and the proportion of incentives in the salary is also large. In the securities industry, bonuses account for a higher proportion of salaries than other industries.
Among small and medium-sized securities companies, there were places where the average annual salary last year exceeded 300 million won. The average annual salary of Bukuk Securities reached 361.24 million won, and KTB Investment & Securities (22.99 million won) Kakao Pay Securities (23.43 million won) and Hi Investment & Securities (27.4 million won) also exceeded the average annual salary of 200 million won.
The fact that securities firms were able to pay billions of annual salaries also contributed to a significant increase in earnings. For example, Samsung Securities said it was tentatively counted last year with sales of 11,2.3 billion won and operating profit of 6779 billion, up 65.3% and 31.0%, respectively, compared to the same period last year. Kiwoom Securities’ operating profit rose 101.6% from the same period last year to 954.9 billion won last year. In January, Kiwoom Securities paid a heavy incentive to employees, which amounts to 450% of the basic salary.
In addition, as the number of individual investors who traded stocks out of debt has increased significantly, it was found that securities companies earned only 1 trillion won from credit loan transactions last year.
Kang Seung-gun, a researcher at KB Securities, said, “The average daily trading value in January was 42.1 trillion won, a 25.1% increase from the previous month, a record high.” “This is because the transaction of large-cap KOSPI has increased significantly based on customer deposits.” Explained.
The stock exchange tax revenue, which the government collected last year due to the booming stock market, also showed a record high. It is expected that the government, which was concerned about the tax deficit in the expansionary fiscal phase, such as the provision of disaster assistance for the whole of the people, is expected to be a small expense. Looking at the’Gross Revenue and Total Expenditure Closing Results’ recently announced by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the government’s securities transaction tax revenue last year was 8,7587 billion won, a nearly double (95.8%) increase from 2019 (4,473.3 billion won). Previously, the highest performance in the collection of securities transaction tax was 6,241.2 billion won in 2018, which is about 40% more than that. Securities transaction tax must be paid 0.25% (KOSPI basis) every time a stock is bought or sold, regardless of the stock price.
An official from the Ministry of Equipment said, “The corporate tax decreased by KRW 16.7 trillion due to poor corporate performance due to Corona 19, etc., and tariffs decreased by KRW 800 billion as economic activity contracted.” , Securities transaction tax was lifted more than 4.30 trillion won,” he explained.
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