Single Home Owners Subject to Comprehensive Real Estate Tax Doubled

The number of single home owners subject to the comprehensive real estate tax has increased 2.1-fold this year, compared to last year. With this increase, four out of 10 people subject to pay the comprehensive real estate tax are single home owners.

This year in particular, increase of the government-assessed standard price has driven taxes even higher. It is highly likely that public backlash against the tax system would be massive as some people are being asked to pay six times more taxes than they did last year.

The National Tax Service has announced on Nov. 29 that it has been notifying taxpayers subject to this year`s comprehensive real estate tax. According to the NTS, the number of people subject to the tax is 486,000 this year, and the total amount of the tax is estimated to reach 2.856 trillion won, increases of 38 percent and 65 percent, respectively.

Individuals and businesses owning expensive homes worth over 600 million won have increased 59.6 percent to 383,000, and individuals among them are 379,000, up 59.9.

The number of homeowners with one house is 147,000, up 116 percent from last year (68,000). Four out of 10 individuals subject to the tax own only one house and that 93.8 percent of individual homeowners subject to the tax live in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, according to the NTS. Among total amount of the comprehensive real estate tax, the amount levied on high-priced homeowners accounted for 1.29 trillion won and the tax on landowners 1.57 trillion won, up 181.2 percent and 23.7 percent, respectively.

The tax agency explained that the property tax has increased because standard property price increased 10 percent to 80 percent of the market value, from the previous 70 percent With this, the comprehensive real estate tax of a 194m² of GS Xi of Shinbong Village in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province increased 563 percent to 767,000 won this year, up 116,000 won from last year.

Taxpayers will have to pay the comprehensive real estate tax for this year from Dec. 1 to Dec. 17, and they will have to pay more if they miss this deadline.

koh@donga.com