Legal Basis Of The Budget In Korea

Abstract

In most countries, the budget and budget administration rest on a legal groundwork consisting of constitutional and statutory provisions. In Britain, there is the Exechequer and Audit Departments Act of 1866, as amended in 1921, which governs not only the functions and organizations of the Exechequer and Audit Department but also the financial mechanism of the British government. The United States has the Budget and Accounting Act which was enacted in June 1921 after "ten years of continuous effort to persuade the Congress". There are also the Government Corporation Control Act of 1945 which tightened up budgetary control of public enterprise, and the Budget and Accounting Procedures Act of 1950 which strengthened, among other things, the authority of the Bureau of the Budget in budget classification and formalized the Bureau's role in the improvement of government accounting systems. The budget system in Korea is governed by four important documents: the Constitution, which makes a few significant general provisions; the Budget and Accounting Law, which lays down in great detail budgetary procedures of ordinary government agencies; the Budget and Accounting Law for Government Enterprise; the Budget and Accounting Law for Government Invested Corporations, which is something similar to the Government Corporation Control Act of 1945 in the United States. We shall examine these in detail.