[Anchor]

Meanwhile, thousands of public comments have already been posted on the Ministry of Government Legislation's website regarding the proposed real estate tax revision plan. There is especially fierce opposition from non-resident single-home owners and couples who jointly own their homes. Criticism is pouring in that the government should have conducted much more thorough analysis before rolling out the policy.

Reporter Kim Beom-joo has the details.

[Reporter]

This is the website of the Ministry of Government Legislation.

A legislative notice for the revision of the Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax Act has been posted, and it has already attracted more than 5,000 comments.

Various complaints have been posted, such as questioning the fairness of raising taxes for non-resident single-home owners or those with joint ownership.

Understandably so, given that there are 2.1 million households in the greater Seoul metropolitan area where homeowners rent out properties they do not live in.

Even after filtering out multiple-home owners, it is estimated that there are around 1 million non-resident single-home owners.

Under this tax revision plan, these non-resident single-home owners have suddenly become a primary target for taxation.

If a homeowner lives in a house valued at just over 2 billion won based on market price, they are exempt from the comprehensive real estate holding tax. However, non-residents will now have to pay 1.85 million won.

Many people choose non-residency due to job relocations or childcare issues, leading to complaints asking if they are expected to move every time such a situation arises. Homeowners are expressing frustration, noting that buying and selling a 2 billion-won apartment to move would incur close to 100 million won in acquisition taxes, registration taxes, and brokerage fees, and asking if they are expected to foot that bill now.

There is also the issue of joint spousal ownership.

Currently, basic deductions are applied when calculating the comprehensive real estate holding tax for non-resident homes with a publicly assessed price of up to 1.8 billion won. Going forward, this will be slashed to 800 million won.

This is even less than what is allowed for single ownership.

Six years ago, in 2020, the National Assembly amended the law, encouraging homeowners to register properties under joint spousal names with the promise of reducing the comprehensive real estate holding tax.

As a result, the number of people who switched to joint ownership for apartments, villas, and officetels in Seoul has now surged to over 1.5 million.

Although the government claims it conducted simulations and analyses on how many people will have to pay more taxes due to the non-resident single-home and joint ownership rules, how much extra they will pay, and what impact it will have on the market, it has not released the results.

The government is putting out explanations and damage-control measures, stating that it will expand the acceptable reasons for non-residency and allow joint owners to pay taxes under a single person's name.

However, it appears necessary for the government to heed criticisms that it should have thoroughly reviewed statistics and analyses from the very beginning before introducing the policy to the public.

(Video editing: Kim Jong-mi, Design: Lee So-jung)