Ruling Party and Government Lean Toward Broadening 'Residency Recognition' for Single-Home Non-Residents

[Anchor]

The Democratic Party and the government held a high-level consultation meeting today (the 23rd) to coordinate real estate policies. The party and the government reached a consensus to expand the scope of "actual residency recognition" particularly for "single-home non-residents." As criticisms continued that the government's tax tightening plan targeting single-home non-residents was excessive, the party voiced the need for complementary measures.

Our first report comes from reporter Ha Jeongyeon.

[Reporter]

Held this morning, the high-level consultative meeting—the first since the launch of Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok's leadership—placed the government's tax reform bill and metropolitan housing supply measures on the main agenda.

Leader Kim first brought up the issue of increasing the tax burden on single-home non-residents and emphasized the need to expand exceptions.

[Kim Min-seok / Democratic Party Leader: I believe that various and inevitable reasons for non-residency in reality should be broadly recognized so that there are no blind spots.]

He also pointed out that deliberation is necessary regarding the government's proposal, such as reducing the comprehensive real estate tax basic deduction for single-home non-residents.

Prime Minister Han Sung-sook and Chief of Presidential Staff Kang Hoon-sik responded that they would fully gather public opinion.

[Kang Hoon-sik / Chief of Presidential Staff: (The tax reform proposal) was not an unilateral announcement of a finalized policy, but rather the presentation of an initial proposal meant to listen to the public's views.]

Following closed-door discussions lasting nearly two and a half hours, the party and government announced that a consensus had been formed to first expand exceptions for single-home non-residents who do not reside in their homes due to unavoidable reasons.

The existing government proposal increases the capital gains tax and holding tax burdens for single-home non-residents while recognizing exceptions for reasons such as schooling, job relocation, or medical treatment, allowing up to three years to be counted as residency periods.

However, as demands poured in to increase exception reasons such as child-rearing or family care, they decided to accept these requests.

The Democratic Party also stated that it strongly requested the government not to make residency distinctions for single-home comprehensive real estate taxes, in response to the government's proposal to differentiate the basic comprehensive real estate tax deduction amount for single-homeowners—setting it at 1.4 billion won for actual residents and 900 million won for non-residents.

[Park Sung-jun / Senior Spokesperson for the Democratic Party: Since the party made a strong request, you can roughly predict how the trend of future discussions will unfold.]

This revision request by the Democratic Party is analyzed to stem from the judgment that strengthening regulations on single-home non-residents is a major cause of negative public sentiment regarding real estate policies, including the decline in the president's approval rating.

The party and government also stated that discussions took place regarding the comprehensive real estate tax upper limit and the fair market value ratio, with plans to submit a revised tax reform bill to the National Assembly on the 3rd of next month after final coordination.

(Photo: Yonhap News / Video Reported by Cho Chundong, Shin Donghwan | Video Edited by Park Sunsu)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.