Lee Jae-myung calls for scaling back tax breaks for nonresident homeownership

President Lee Jae-myung said April 24 that tax relief tied to long-term homeownership should focus on people who actually live in their homes, not on owners who hold property as an investment.
 
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Lee said that to protect single-home owners, capital gains tax relief based on the period of actual residence is needed. But he said cutting taxes on the sale of expensive homes “just because someone invested for a long time without living there” is not a housing protection policy but “a policy that encourages housing speculation.”
 
“Where there is income, there are taxes,” Lee wrote. “People pay earned income tax on money they work hard to make, so it is natural to pay capital gains tax on housing gains.”
 
He also rejected claims of a “tax bomb,” saying it is abnormal to reduce taxes for those who “speculated for a long time” on homes they did not live in. “To properly protect housing for single-home owners, it would be right to reduce deductions for nonresident holding periods and increase deductions for resident holding periods by that amount,” he said.
 
Lee again criticized what he called forces that promote real estate speculation, saying they appear to be active again after a lull. He pointed to speculation centered on Seoul’s Gangnam area, including the practice known as buying “one best home,” which he said spread speculation and triggered a chain of surges in home prices.
 
He added that a bill proposed by some opposition lawmakers to limit the special long-term holding deduction is unrelated to the government, but is being portrayed “as if it were a bill proposed by the president” and used for attacks.
 
On April 18, Lee rebutted claims by the People Power Party that abolishing the special long-term holding deduction for capital gains tax would amount to a “tax bomb,” calling the argument “a logical contradiction and an obvious false incitement.” He said the deduction sharply reduces capital gains tax “regardless of whether the owner lives there,” while a separate system provides tax relief for long-term residence.