Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan last week reiterated his cautious stance against raising the country’s corporate tax rate, which currently ranges from 10 to 22 percent.

In a parliamentary interpellation session, he warned that levying heavier taxes on corporations could hold them back from increasing investment and thus further hamper economic recovery. Choi has argued that slower growth would lead to a decrease in tax revenue, making it harder for the government to cover increasing welfare expenditure.

Calls have been mounting to increase corporate taxes since a revised tax settlement scheme resulted in putting a heavier burden on most wage earners earlier this year.

President Park Geun-hye’s administration has stuck to her campaign pledge to expand welfare benefits without raising tax rates. In response to a move by the main political parties toward discussing rate hikes, Park emphasized that efforts should first be made to broaden the tax base and cut back wasteful spending. The finance minister repeated this view in Thursday’s interpellation session, saying increasing taxes must be a last resort.

But the discontent is growing among working-class people that this policy has only increased their burden while letting large profitable companies hoard huge amounts of cash on the back of low corporate tax rates. Critics note that the government is resorting to stopgap measures such as reducing tax credits on earned income to finance bloated benefit programs without raising tax rates.

Given the country’s snowballing household debt and slumping consumer spending, there seems to be little room for hiking income tax rates. Taxes collected from wage earners have continued to increase in recent years, while corporate tax revenues decreased from 45.9 trillion won ($41.5 billion) in 2012 to 42.7 trillion won last year, with big companies piling up large amounts of cash reserves over the same period.

Given these conditions, the idea of raising corporate tax rates may no longer be taboo. The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy has called for hiking the maximum tax rate levied on corporate profits to 25 percent from the current 22 percent. The ruling Saenuri Party has also eased its stance against a corporate tax increase, with its leading members recently remarking that the idea was not inconceivable.

It seems that now is the time for the administration and rival parties to undertake a serious discussion, from a balanced viewpoint, on whether and how to collect more taxes from companies. They need to pay heed to a growing public perception that a corporate tax increase cannot be excluded from the task of establishing a framework for sustainable welfare spending.

What may complicate their discussion is the difficulty in gauging its effect on tax revenue and corporate investment. Some analysts forecast that raising the rate on corporate profits of more than 50 billion won by 3 percentage points to 25 percent will increase revenue by an annual average 4.6 trillion won over the next five years, while others predict the measure will reduce it by 1.2 trillion won.

Most experts agree that the tax rate hike will have an adverse effect on corporate investment. But as big businesses hoard hundreds of trillions of won in cash reserves, a modest tax increase might not significantly affect their investment plans.

In any case, discarding or reducing various tax breaks given to large companies should precede a decision to hike the corporate tax rate. Then, the rate may be raised gradually ― and, if possible, on a temporary basis ― in consideration of the exact amount of funding needed to finance welfare benefits.