"Bold Recognition of Non-Residence Reasons"... Moving Toward a "Negative" Approach?

[Anchor]

Discussions are continuing, centered around the ruling party, to supplement the government's real estate tax reform proposal. In particular, as there are many unavoidable circumstances for single-home owners who are non-residents, such as children's education or caring for elderly parents, a direction to broadly recognize exceptional circumstances is being strongly reviewed.

Reporter Park Jae-yeon has the details.

[Reporter]

Today (August 24), the ruling party's Supreme Council meeting.

Regarding the government's tax reform proposal, which was dealt with as a core agenda at yesterday's high-level party-government-presidential office consultation, the necessity to rationally adjust the tax burden for "single-home owners who are non-residents" was emphasized once again.

[Han Byeong-do / Democratic Party Floor Leader: We gathered our intention to rationally supplement the tax system so that single-home owners who could not reside due to unavoidable circumstances do not suffer unfair disadvantages.]

The National Assembly Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, attended by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Koo Yun-cheol and Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yoon-deok.

Ruling party lawmakers stepped forward to demand a relaxation or adjustment of the pace of the tax reform proposal.

[Ahn Do-geol / Democratic Party Lawmaker: Isn't it necessary to ease it somewhat or adjust the pace in terms of execution?]

The government responded with the intention to boldly increase the exceptional reasons that recognize non-residence as residence.

[Koo Yun-cheol / Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs: Regarding the part where non-residence (=the reason) is somewhat rational, we are trying to solve this problem by boldly transitioning to (recognizing) it as residence.]

The government's existing reform proposal includes an "exception clause" that recognizes up to a maximum of 3 years of residency when a "single-home owner who is a non-resident" lives in a different city or county due to reasons such as a child's high school or college enrollment, a change of workplace, or caring for parents aged 60 or older.

Within the ruling party, various measures are being discussed, such as expanding exceptional reasons to include enrollment in middle schools and special schools, and victims of domestic violence; extending the period recognized as residence beyond a "maximum of 3 years"; and raising the comprehensive real estate tax basic deduction for single-home non-residents higher than the government's proposal of 900 million won to narrow the gap with actual residents.

Furthermore, the ruling party is even reviewing a method of drastically expanding the "recognition of residence for non-residents" by separately regulating cases that cannot be considered as residence through a "negative approach."

(Photo courtesy of: Oh Young-chun, Kim Yong-woo | Video by: Jang Hyun-ki | Graphics: Hwang Se-yeon)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.