Rep. Park Su-min of the People Power Party [Yonhap]
Rep. Park Su-min of the People Power Party [Yonhap]

People Power Party Rep. Park Su-min continued her sharp criticism of the government's real estate tax reform package, announced Monday.

Park appeared on SBS Radio's "Kim Tae-hyun's Politics Show" on Wednesday, saying the overhaul left her feeling "heartbroken."

"If the reform package passes the National Assembly, the damage will fall on jeonse and monthly rent tenants," she said. "Sixty percent of Seoul residents live in jeonse or monthly rentals. The real income of 6 million citizens will simply disappear."

Turning to loan regulations, Park said the government appeared to believe such measures would work, but that actual home buyers were already struggling to make their final loan payments. "The direction is the same as under the Moon Jae-in administration, but the intensity is even harsher," she said.

On the "tax normalization" argument advanced by the government and the ruling party, Park said, "The entire way of thinking is itself abnormal."

"They say multi-home owners drove up housing prices, but prices rise because of economic growth," she said. "If you increase supply, prices stabilize — and multi-home owners are actually needed for that." She added that cultivating such owners as professional rental operators was an approach pursued through the Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung administrations.

Park called the focus on 10 billion won ($7 million) in real estate capital gains — which became a flashpoint at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting — "diabolical editing." "It would take a lifetime to earn 10 billion won from housing," she said. "How can you compare income earned over 40 or 50 years with 1 billion won earned in a single year?" She added that if it took 50 years to earn 10 billion won, that works out to 200 million won a year. "You should be comparing 1 billion won with 200 million won," she said. "How can you make a flat comparison when the realities are so different?"

Park said she agreed that housing prices needed to be stabilized, but argued that high-density development in transit-oriented areas was more effective than tax regulations. "We need to supply housing through high-density transit-oriented development and ensure an ample supply of jeonse and monthly rentals," she said, adding that a legal review of using well-located land — such as the reserve forces training ground in Naegok-dong — for housing supply was urgently needed.

"If you cut off all loans in the short term and regulate through taxes, supply will contract and the blow will fall directly on jeonse and monthly rent tenants," she said. "The tax pain and loan pain that citizens will feel cannot be calculated in terms of political gain or loss."


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