Im Gwang-hyun, Commissioner of the National Tax Service (NTS), posted a message on his social media.
After stating that "supercar sales are decreasing following investigations into the private use of corporate supercars," he wrote, "There is an issue identical to the supercar problem, which is the matter of 'emperor residences'."
Commissioner Im conducted the first-ever inspection into high-end corporate housing subject to the comprehensive real estate holding tax—properties exceeding the national housing size standard with a publicly notified price of more than 900 million won—stating that "the results were more serious than expected."
Out of the approximately 2,600 properties targeted for inspection, excluding rental properties by leasing corporations and employee dormitories, about 1,000 properties—or roughly 42%—were found to be inhabited or privately used by owner families, he added. The publicly notified price of these homes averaged over 2 billion won, with 12 properties exceeding 10 billion won and the highest-priced property surpassing 20 billion won.
Commissioner Im particularly pointed out that "some companies have provided ultra-high-end apartments with Han River views or located in Gangnam and Yongsan as luxury residences for owners or their children, keeping it an open secret among employees," adding that "there were also speculative types who transferred their own high-end homes to corporations to evade multi-home regulations."
He also noted that "cases where corporations acquired high-end condos worth over 10 billion won under the pretext of employee welfare, only for owner families or certain executives to use them for private purposes, were problematic in terms of fairness."
Targeting these emperor residence practices, Commissioner Im announced the launch of massive tax audits.
He added that the verification would be expanded to cover overall embezzlement of corporate funds, such as the free provision of luxury condos or overseas residences for chairmen's children, as well as the funding of study abroad expenses.
(Reported by Jeong Gyeong-yun | Video by Na Hong-hee | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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