A survey shows that Koreans are more satisfied with their National Tax Service (NTS) than Americans are with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The survey, conducted by the CFI Group affiliated with the
University of Michigan, revealed that the satisfaction point for
the NTS services came to 64 points, compared with 48 points for
IRS services.

The CFI Group used a 100-point scale to gauge satisfaction.

The survey is based on interviews and telephone surveys with
3,350 taxpayers each in Korea and the United States.

The Korean respondents hold a relatively clean image of their
tax officials, giving them 79 points on average for "cleanness."

Still, seventy-one percent of Korean respondents said they
suspected corruption existed at the NTS. But that number was
substantially lower than figures before September 1, 1999, when
the country implemented tax administration reforms.

Meanwhile, Korean tax officials are less satisfied with their
jobs than their U.S. counterparts their satisfaction points
totaled 32, much lower than the IRS officials' average of 56.