[Editorial] Tax Bomb Angers Single-Home Families

The number of complaints filed against the officially announced reference land price reached 74,553 within merely a month in the Seoul metropolitan area, Busan, and Gwangju. Most of them were about the excessive tax burden. Others who did not actually filed a complaint are no exceptions in railing at the hike of the posted land price and the sharp rise in tax.

An owner of a 54-pyong (1 pyeong = 3.3㎡) apartment in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, is to pay 8.03 million won for property tax and comprehensive real estate tax this year, a whopping six million won surge from last year’s 2.98 million won in property tax. There are many apartment owners whose tax burden has more than doubled in a year because of 30-40 percent jump in the posted house prices, which serves as a tax base, and the newly introduced comprehensive real estate tax.

The tax increase is justified only when its pace is adjusted to the taxpayers’ capability. Doubling or tripling taxation is as good as plundering. Collecting taxes is a government’s right, but extortion is not part of it.

If the government is aimed at curbing speculation, heavy taxation on multiple homeowners would do the job. “Imposing comprehensive real estate tax on owners of two 400 million- won houses while excluding those who has one house of 1.5 billion won house is against the rule of equality,” said one of real estate columns posted on Cheong Wa Dae briefing, the presidential web page for policy promotion. But it is clearly wrong to charge heavy taxes on people who are simply dwelling, not speculating, in an expensive residence, as if it is a socially unacceptable behavior.

A house is not like a golf club membership or a yacht. “A house for every household” is what everybody hopes for. It is also a common sense. Rising house prices do not give the owner any immediate income. If the government, whose policy is liable for rising real estate prices, gloats on the tax misery of the middle class, that is too much. The Roh Moo-hyun administration, however, does not seem to understand that there are fewer and fewer taxpayers who is willing to tolerate its tax policies.