Governors of Provincial Cities Jointly Respond to 'Realization of Officially Announced Prices'... "Freeze at Last Year's Level"

Five metropolitan governors affiliated with the People Power Party held a meeting on the 18th at the Seoul City Hall briefing room to discuss measures against the rise in official land prices and announced a joint petition in response to the official land price increase. (From left) Kwon Young-jin, Mayor of Daegu; Park Hyung-joon, Mayor of Busan; Won Hee-ryong, Governor of Jeju Province; Oh Se-hoon, Mayor of Seoul; Lee Cheol-woo, Governor of Gyeongbuk Province. 2021.4.18

[Asia Economy Reporter Kum Boryeong] Five metropolitan local government heads affiliated with the People Power Party expressed opposition to the government's plan to raise the official property prices.

On the 18th, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, Busan Mayor Park Hyung-joon, Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin, Gyeongbuk Governor Lee Cheol-woo, and Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong held a "Joint Discussion on Realistic Adjustment of Official Property Prices" meeting at Seoul City Hall and announced a proposal consisting of five clauses.

They requested President Moon Jae-in to provide the joint housing price survey and calculation reports to local governments as well, and to instruct the Board of Audit and Inspection to conduct investigations considering the low reliability of the official property prices.

Along with this, they asked to freeze this year's official property prices at the previous year's level to reduce the tax burden and to transfer the authority to decide joint housing official property prices to local governments.

Mayor Oh emphasized, "This year, the number of objections to official property prices is about 40,000, which is more than 30 times higher than four years ago. This shows how widespread the distrust in official property prices is. When supply exceeds demand, prices go down. If quality housing is supplied in Gangnam, naturally the asset gap between Gangnam and Gangbuk, as well as between Seoul and other regions, will decrease."

Mayor Park said, "Transparency, stability, and reliability are the most important factors for taxes," and added, "We request that the public be assured that tax imposition is stable and trustworthy."

Governor Won pointed out, "It is unfair to recklessly treat the people's property and impose punitive taxes in a chaotic manner," and criticized, "Taxation must be imposed only by law according to the constitutional principle of tax legality, and this is being circumvented by irregular means."

The five metropolitan governors who gathered on this day plan to meet regularly to respond together whenever various issues arise in the future.