Rich people pay taxes on ordinary people: Taxes on inheritance, assets, and gold increasing – impact on common people

Ms. A, a housewife in her 70s with two children, recently lost her husband, inherited an apartment, and paid taxes of 9.7 million won. It was an old apartment, but when the value of the property exceeded 1.1 billion won, it came under inheritance tax and he had to save a lump sum of money to pay the tax. Ms A, who had no clear income, had to pay a lot of taxes due to the grief of losing her husband.

Mr B, an office worker in his 40s, visited the bank and was surprised to hear that he was subject to comprehensive financial income tax (gold tax). Mr. B said, “I started my career at a younger age than others and saved 700 million won in fixed investment, but as interest rates rose, I suddenly had to pay a lot of tax to pay ”

Mr. C, a single homeowner who lives in an 84㎡ apartment in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, has been paying comprehensive real estate tax (comprehensive real estate tax) for two years. Mr. C complained, “It’s not a profit property, it’s not just a place to live, but paying taxes is a huge burden.”

While the national economy is growing, taxes, including estate and gift tax, gold and small income tax, comprehensive real estate tax, and individual consumption tax (individual consumption tax ), reducing, increasing the burden on the common people. Since its introduction, national income has more than tripled, and even ordinary people, not just those in the upper income and wealth class, have come under taxing power. Unlike in the past, stock investing has now become common, and as the rise in asset prices, including apartment prices, has been rapid, many say that a reasonable degree of adjustment is required to reflect the changed economic situation.

In fact, estate and gift taxes have remained unchanged for 24 years since the top tax rate rose from 45% to 50% in 2000. The Comprehensive Estate Tax (2005) was 20 years away from being introduced. implementation, and Geumsose Tax (1996) was 28 years old. The individual consumption tax, which was introduced in 1977 when cars were considered a luxury good, has been in place for 47 years.

The problem is that while high tax rates are still in place, even ordinary people whose incomes and assets have increased as a result of economic growth have been discriminated against taxes.

According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the domestic tax burden ratio (the ratio of tax revenue to gross domestic product (GDP) )) has increased by 3.9 percentage points in the last five years, changed to date +23.8% compared to yesterday. This means that the tax burden is increasing faster than the national income.

In 2000 alone, 39,000 people paid 900 billion won in inheritance and gift taxes. However, in 2022, the number of people paying was at 268,000 and the tax amount jumped significantly to 14.6 trillion won. This is because the aging trend is accelerating and inherited wealth has increased from 3.4 trillion won to 56.4 trillion won during this period.

In particular, ordinary people who own apartments are hit hard. Usually, an estate tax is levied on apartments exceeding 1 billion won, but this year, of the 1,931,000 apartments in Seoul, the proportion of apartments exceeding 1 billion won was ‘ make up 39.9% (772,400 households), meaning that there is already a large number of citizens. subject to taxes.

According to a Maeil Business Newspaper study, if this trend continues, the proportion of households in Seoul that must pay estate tax is expected to rise to 80% in 2030.

Choi Seong-il, CEO of the Yale Tax Company and a former professor at the National Tax Service Training Institute, said, “In any case, we must pursue a plan to greatly expand the inheritance tax deduction for spouses,” and added he emphasized, “The extension of the spousal benefit is not a tax cut for the wealthy because it is not an intergenerational transfer of wealth.” ”

As asset investment, including stock, has increased, the gold tax has become a ‘common man’s tax’. Currently, if financial income including interest and dividend income exceeds 20 million won per year, it is combined with income other and taxed at a progressive tax rate of up to 49.5%. There have been a series of cases where ordinary people who had regularly managed their assets through investments and savings were hit with a gold tax bomb due to high interest rates.

Man-sik Ahn, CEO of Leehyun Tax Company, said, “Since the gold and silver tax was introduced about 30 years ago, it is necessary to raise the 20 million earned tax base consider the current state of the capital market. ”

Although the overall burden of real estate taxes has decreased since Yoon Seok-yeol’s government came to power, the fact remains that actual consumers have a greater burden. Accordingly, there is an analysis that only those who have one home should be excluded from taxes.

Rep. Ahn said, “It’s too much to put a property tax and a comprehensive real estate tax on the same property twice,” and added, “It’s right to respond to stabilizing real estate prices by ‘ provide housing at low prices, not with punitive taxes. ”

It is noted that surgery is also needed on the car sales tax and the securities transaction tax, which is fifty years old. The individual consumption tax is a separate tax from the value added tax when buying jewelery or cars and was introduced to prevent the consumption of luxury goods. However, the main idea is that it is now difficult to see cars as luxury goods.

According to the Ministry of Lands, Infrastructure and Transport, the number of registered cars last year was 25.95 million, or one car per household. An industry official said, “Treating cars in the same way as luxury goods defeats the purpose of taxes, so it is reasonable to exclude cars from taxes.

The securities transaction tax, which imposes a 0.03-0.18% tax on stock transactions, was introduced in 1979 to secure tax revenue as taxes became difficult to collect due to inadequate stock market income recognition system. However, there are voices saying that it should be abolished as the reason for its introduction has long since disappeared as the tax base of the stock has become strong.

Kim Myeong-joon, former head of Seoul’s National Tax Service, said, “The system should be reformed in a way that reduces the tax burden on middle and lower class families, but puts an appropriate burden on high -net worth. He also said, “We need to strengthen the tax base by strengthening work incentives and other incentives to encourage those willing to work.” “It needs to be expanded,” he said.

[김정환 기자 / 이희조 기자]