Editor’s note: This article is the second in a two-part series on what newly revealed North Korean laws reveal about the future of DPRK economic policy. Part one on special unitization and sectionalism can be read here.

North Korea lacks a functioning modern system of taxation and revenue raising to fund government services, and this has created an array of problems that a newly revealed law suggests the state is struggling to address.

The existing system levies taxes on state-owned firms, including taxes on profits and transactions, revenues of collective farms, land and real