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As Korea’s stock market barrels through record highs on the back of the semiconductor rally, the boom is creating an unlikely windfall that extends far beyond the trading floor, into farms and schools. Behind it are two earmarked taxes that automatically rise in line with trading activity and financial firms’ earnings. But the surge is also exposing a policy dilemma. Critics have argued that these funds were already taking in more money than they could realistically spend. Now, with the market rally expected to generate tens of trillions of won in additional tax revenue, debate is growing over how to handle the overflow — and whether the country’s decades-old tax structure still makes sense, industry officials said Sunday. Unlike broad-based taxes such as income and corporate levies that flow into the government’s general budget, the special rural development tax and education tax are purpose-specific ones designed to fund designated policy areas. The rural development tax, introduced in 1994 after Korea opened its agricultural market to foreign competition, aims to support rur