[Anchor]
The Democratic Party and the government have reached a consensus that the scope of single-home owners who inevitably cannot live in their own homes should be recognized more broadly. The Democratic Party demanded that the government make no distinction in the comprehensive real estate holding tax for single-home owners regardless of whether they reside in them or not.
Today's (August 24) first news report comes from reporter Ha Jeongyeon.
[Reporter]
The high-level party-government consultative meeting, held yesterday morning for the first time since the launch of Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok's leadership, focused on the government's tax reform bill and housing supply measures for the Seoul metropolitan area.
Leader Kim first raised the issue of strengthening tax burdens on non-residing single-home owners, emphasizing the need to expand exceptions, and stated,
[Kim Min-seok / Leader, Democratic Party]: "I believe that various realistic and unavoidable reasons for non-residency should be broadly recognized so that there are no blind spots."
He also pointed out that deliberation is necessary regarding government proposals such as reducing the basic deduction of the comprehensive real estate holding tax for non-residing single-home owners.
Prime Minister Han Sung-sook and Chief of Staff to the President Kang Hoon-sik responded that they would sufficiently gather public opinions.
[Kang Hoon-sik / Chief of Staff to the President]: "(The tax reform bill) is not an unilateral announcement of a finalized policy, but rather the announcement of a starting proposal to listen to the public's opinions."
Following nearly two and a half hours of closed-door discussions, the party and the government announced that a consensus was formed to first expand the recognition of exceptions for single-home owners who are non-residents due to unavoidable reasons.
The existing government proposal increases the capital gains tax and holding tax burdens for non-residing single-home owners while recognizing reasons such as schooling, job changes, and medical treatment as exceptions, counting them as residency periods for up to three years.
However, as demands poured in to increase the reasons for recognizing exceptions, such as childcare or family care, they decided to accept them.
The Democratic Party also stated that it strongly requested the government not to make distinctions in the comprehensive real estate holding tax for single-home owners, noting that the government proposal differentiated the basic deduction amount for single-home owners depending on actual residency—1.4 billion won for actual residents and 900 million won for non-residents.
[Park Sung-joon / Senior Spokesperson, Democratic Party]: "Since the party made a strong request, you can roughly predict how the trend of future discussions will unfold."
This demand for revision by the Democratic Party is analyzed to stem from the judgment that strengthening regulations on non-residing single-home owners is a major cause of negative public sentiment regarding real estate policies, including the decline in the president's approval rating.
The party and the government also announced that discussions took place regarding the upper limit of the comprehensive real estate holding tax and the fair market value ratio, with plans to submit a revised tax reform bill to the National Assembly on September 3 through final coordination.
(Video reporting: Cho Choon-dong, Shin Dong-hwan | Video editing: Park Sun-soo)
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