Yoo Seung-min: "'Top 2% Comprehensive Real Estate Tax' Is an Absurd Tax... Not Taxation According to Law but Division"

Former lawmaker Yoo Seung-min. Photo by Dongju Yoon doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] Former People Power Party lawmaker Yoo Seung-min harshly criticized the Democratic Party's party stance to impose property holding tax on the top 2% as a "bizarre tax." Yoo called this tax policy decision "tax discrimination."

On the 19th, Yoo posted on social media (SNS), "The Democratic Party wavered between 900 million KRW and 1.2 billion KRW as the exemption threshold for comprehensive real estate tax, creating a bizarre tax that is neither here nor there," and criticized, "Imposing holding tax on the top 2% is a tax that does not exist in any other country in the world."

He pointed out, "Taxes should be set by law on items measurable in currency such as income, assets, or prices," adding, "Regardless of whether real estate prices rise or fall, forcing the top 2% to pay taxes unconditionally is not the principle of tax legality but merely 'tax discrimination.'"

Yoo criticized, "The Moon Jae-in administration's real estate policies were obsessed with taxes and regulations from beginning to end, and the result was insane housing prices and crazy monthly rents that soared overnight."

He said, "The real estate problem can only be solved by stabilizing the epicenter, the Seoul metropolitan area, first," and added, "We will firmly supply 1 million housing units through private development and 500,000 public rental housing units, totaling 1.5 million units, within the next government's five-year term to stabilize the real estate market."

He continued, "We will adjust the holding tax so that it does not burden the middle class and lower transaction taxes to activate transactions."

Yoo concluded, "Without supply and by only clinging to taxes and regulations, the real estate problem cannot be solved at all. Isn't the miserable failure of the Moon Jae-in administration proof of that?"