[Anchor]

Discussions are underway, centered around the ruling party, to supplement the government's real estate tax reform plan. In particular, for single-home owners who do not reside in their properties, given that there are many unavoidable circumstances such as children's education and supporting parents, a direction to broadly recognize exceptions is being strongly considered.

Reporter Park Jae-yeon has the details.

[Reporter]

Yesterday (the 24th), the ruling party's Supreme Council meeting.

Regarding the government's tax reform plan, which was handled as a core agenda item at the high-level party-government-presidential meeting the day before, the need to rationally adjust the tax burden for "single-home owners who do not reside in their properties" was emphasized once again.

[Han Byung-do / Democratic Party Floor Leader: We agreed to rationally supplement the tax system so that single-home owners who could not reside in their homes due to unavoidable reasons do not suffer unfair disadvantages.]

The National Assembly Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Koo Yun-cheol and Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yoon-duk.

Ruling party lawmakers stepped up to request a relaxation of the tax reform plan or an adjustment in its implementation speed.

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

The government responded with the intention of boldly increasing the exceptional reasons for recognizing non-residence as actual residence.

[Koo Yun-cheol / Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance: For cases where the reason for non-residence is somewhat reasonable, we are trying to resolve these issues by boldly converting them into recognized residence.]

The government's existing reform plan includes an "exception clause" where, if a "single-home owner who does not reside" lives in another city or county due to reasons such as a child's high school or college enrollment, a change of workplace, or supporting parents aged 60 or older, the period of non-residence is recognized as a period of residence for up to three years.

Within the ruling party, various measures are being discussed, including expanding exceptional reasons to middle school and special school enrollment or victims of domestic violence; extending the recognized residence period beyond the current "maximum of 3 years"; and raising the basic comprehensive real estate tax deduction for single-home owners who do not reside above the government's proposed 900 million won to narrow the gap with actual residents.

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

(Camera Cooperation: Oh Young-chun, Kim Yong-woo | Video Editing: Jang Hyun-ki | Design: Hwang Se-yeon)