National Tax Service Chief Targets "Emperor Residences" Owned by Corporations, Comparing Them to Supercars

This is a message posted by National Tax Service Commissioner Lim Kwang-hyun on his social media.

After noting that "supercar sales are decreasing following investigations into the private use of corporate supercars," he wrote, "There is an issue identical to supercars, and that is the problem of 'emperor residences.'"

Commissioner Lim revealed that for the first time, authorities verified the actual conditions of high-end corporate housing subject to the comprehensive real estate holding tax—specifically properties exceeding the national housing size standard and with an officially assessed price of more than 900 million won—and stated, "The results were more serious than expected."

Out of approximately 2,600 units investigated, excluding rental properties owned by rental companies and employee dormitories, about 1,000 units—roughly 42%—were found to be lived in or privately used by the families of company owners, he added. The officially assessed price of these homes averaged over 2 billion won, with 12 units exceeding 10 billion won and the highest-priced unit surpassing 20 billion won.

Commissioner Lim particularly pointed out, "Some companies have provided ultra-high-end apartments with river views in Gangnam or Yongsan as luxury residences for owners or their children while keeping it an open secret from employees," adding, "There were also speculative cases where individuals transferred their own high-end homes to corporations to evade regulations on multiple homeowners."

He also noted, "Cases where high-end condos worth over 10 billion won were secured under corporate names under the pretext of employee welfare, only to be used privately by family members of owners or certain executives, were problematic in terms of equity."

Targeting such practices of maintaining emperor residences, Commissioner Lim announced that a massive tax investigation would be launched.

He added that verifications would be expanded to cover overall embezzlement of corporate funds, such as providing high-end condos or overseas residences free of charge to chairmen's children, or supporting study-abroad expenses.

(Reported by Jeong Gyeong-yun | Video by Na Hong-hee | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.