“\nLee Jae-myung, a candidate for the ruling Democratic Party leadership, took a step further on the issues of easing comprehensive real estate taxes and deferring financial investment income taxes on the 24th. This candidate proposed specific alternatives such as significantly easing comprehensive taxes on primary residences and raising the tax-exempt bracket for financial investments to ‘5 billion won over 5 years’. This is an extension of the centrist outreach strategy.
During a debate among Democratic Party leadership candidates held on KBS on the 24th, when asked by candidate Kim Du-kwan how he would achieve ‘eating while lowering taxes for the wealthy,’ Lee responded, “Taxation is a means to secure national revenue, not a means of punishing individuals,” and presented specific alternatives for tax reforms.
Regarding comprehensive taxes, Lee expressed strong opposition to punitive taxation based on the premise that taxing a primary residence, where a family lives and has earned a living for a lifetime, due to a rise in value was too severe. He suggested significantly easing comprehensive taxes on one household’s primary residence and balancing the tax burden by slightly increasing taxes on land and buildings, among other things. He emphasized that comprehensive taxes are an essential system for local government finances.
Regarding financial investment taxes, Lee pointed out that in South Korea, small investors are suffering too much due to stock market unfairness, market manipulation issues, economic crises stemming from the Korean Peninsula crisis and foreign diplomacy, and the absence of future economic policies by the government, and suggested considering delaying or increasing tax exemptions for those who have earned at least 100 million won annually over a period of five years.
Candidate Kim countered by criticizing the Yoon Suk-yeol government for significantly reducing corporate taxes, inheritance taxes, gift taxes, and comprehensive taxes, leading to an expected shortfall of about 90 trillion won in government revenue this year. He argued that this approach contradicts the concept of ‘eating while lowering taxes.’ He emphasized that the basic principle of taxation policy is to secure funds through taxes to support the middle class, ordinary citizens, and those in need.
Lee emphasized that a reduction in corporate taxes for large corporations with strong payment capabilities is naturally opposed, and proposed exempting the tax on income earned by individuals who have earned a total of 500 million won over a period of five years in financial investments. He also suggested adjusting the taxation of high-income earners without abolishing the entire financial investment tax to prevent a drain on the tax revenue of high-income individuals.
In response to this, Kim argued that taxing those who invest in the stock market annually with an income of over 50 million won for the past five years affects only about 150,000 people, representing about 1% of the total population. He also criticized the taxation on comprehensive properties worth over 1.2 billion won, which only applies to 2.7% of the total population in South Korea.”