Seoul, Five Other Major Cities Will Not Lower Taxation Standards

This year, Seoul and five other major cities, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju and Daejeon, have agreed not to lower the taxation standard, which is the standard for September’s land property tax and December’s real estate tax.

Accordingly, citizens who possess land in these regions may be burdened with more taxes.

According to the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs (MOGAHA) and the local government bodies on September 5, 66 out of the 69 districts (95.7 percent) in the six major cities have agreed to forward their land property tax bills from September 10-12 without lowering the taxation standard. Concerned with the substantial increase in tax amounts, the MOGAHA had originally arranged for the cities to voluntarily lower the taxation standard within a 50 percent range of the standard’s increase amount, but the districts in the six major cities had refused to do so out of concerns over a lack of revenue.

The increase amount of this year and last year’s land prices (national average 37.5 percent) were reflected at once because the announcement date of the official land values have changed this year, and if they are directly applied, tax amounts will increase by a great amount.

Kang Min-gu, head of Regional Taxation Team at MOGAHA, said, “The increase rates of the official land prices in the major cities are relatively less than that in other cities, and due to this, maybe the local government bodies are predicting that tax burdens will not increase that much, even if tax bills go out as usual.”

On the other hand, out of the 160 cities and districts affiliated with provincial governments, 148 (92.5 percent) have agreed to lower part of the taxation standard’s increase amount. Twelve cities and districts (7.5 percent) have not lowered them at all.

Among them, the cities and districts in North Chungcheong Province, South Chungcheong Province, North Jeolla Province, South Jeolla Province and South Gyeongsang Province have agreed to drop 50 percent of their taxation standard’s increase amount.

In Gyeonggi Province, the lowering rates differ among the 31 cities. A total of 21 cities, including Kimpo, Hanam, and Yangpyeong will drop 50 percent of their increase amounts, and Yangju (40 percent), Suwon (30 percent), Anyang (30 percent), Gapyeong (10 percent) each applied a different rate. Six cities, such as Gwacheon, Goyang, Bucheon, Namyangju, Gwangmyeong and Siheung did not lower the taxation standard.

Tax accountant Choi Bong-gil said, “Since the lowering rates differ by region, the land property taxes and real estate taxes may show a difference even if the land value is the same.”

legman@donga.com