The ruling and opposition parties on the 2nd handled a total of 79 noncontentious livelihood-related bills at a plenary session of the National Assembly. They also passed 16 budget-related bills by agreement.
The National Assembly convened a plenary session that afternoon and, before voting on next year's budget bill, put noncontentious bills on the agenda and approved them.
The most notable bill was an amendment to the Tobacco Business Act that includes liquid e-cigarettes using synthetic nicotine as a raw material in the "tobacco" category. Under current law, products using synthetic nicotine, a chemical substance, are not defined as tobacco and have been excluded from taxation. But with about 95% of liquid e-cigarettes on the market estimated to be synthetic nicotine products, criticism has steadily mounted that they fall into a regulatory blind spot. Although legislation had been attempted several times since 2016, it repeatedly failed due to industry pushback, but the bill cleared the National Assembly on the day. The National Assembly Budget Office estimated that about 930.1 billion won in tax revenue could be secured when the amendment takes effect.
A "regional doctor training support act," which requires that a certain percentage of medical school seats be selected through a regional doctor track, was also passed that day. The amendment stipulates that the state and local governments will cover tuition for students selected through the regional doctor track, but require them to serve for 10 years at regional public medical institutions after obtaining a medical license.
In addition, the following passed the plenary session: ▲ a special act to support the strengthening of competitiveness in the petrochemical industry that provides grounds for tax, fiscal, and employment support needed for restructuring of the petrochemical industry ▲ an amendment to the act on the protection of children and juveniles against sexual offenses that excludes the application of the statute of limitations to sexual violence crimes involving relatives ▲ an amendment to the Criminal Act that raises the statutory penalty for fraud from "up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to 20 million won" to "up to 20 years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won."
Sixteen subsidiary bills to the 2026 revenue budget bill designated by National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik were also handled. Amendments to the Corporate Tax Act, education tax act, Inheritance Tax and Gift Tax Act, National Finance Act, and international tax coordination act passed as originally drafted, while the amendment to the comprehensive real estate tax act and the early childhood special account act were passed reflecting revised versions. Eight amendments—including the State Property Special Cases Restriction Act, the Framework Act on National Taxes, the National Tax Collection Act, the Income Tax Act, the Value‑Added Tax Act, the Individual Consumption Tax Act, the Act on Restriction on Special Cases Concerning Taxation, and the Customs Act—and the higher and lifelong education support special account act were passed with committee substitutes.
The Income Tax Act amendment expands the tax exemption limit on childbirth and childcare expenses paid by corporations from "200,000 won per month" to "200,000 won per month per child," and includes arts and physical education academy fees for children in second grade or below in elementary school, or under age 9, in the education expense tax credit.
Proposals to raise the corporate tax and education tax passed as the government's original plan because the ruling and opposition parties failed to find common ground until the last minute. The government submitted a plan to raise the corporate tax rate by 1 percentage point in all tax base brackets after it was cut under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, but the People Power Party countered that the bottom two brackets (200 million won or less, and 200 million to 20 billion won), which include small and medium-size corporations, should remain unchanged. For the education tax as well, the People Power Party argued to maintain or lower the current rate, but in the end the government plan to raise the rate applied to financial companies with operating revenue of 1 trillion won or more from 0.5% to 1.0% was passed.