President Lee Jae Myung listens to participants at a national public forum on real estate policy held at the KBS annex in Yeouido, Seoul, on July 23. [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung listens to participants at a national public forum on real estate policy held at the KBS annex in Yeouido, Seoul, on July 23. [Yonhap]

People Power Party lawmaker Lee Yang-su has condemned the government's real estate tax reform package, announced Monday, as "Lee Jae Myung-style punitive politics" and warned it would face "a massive backlash from the public."

Lee posted on Facebook on Tuesday, calling the real estate tax overhaul "an act of tax tyranny that thoroughly ignores how markets work, and an unjust fiscal plunder by the state seeking to control people's lives." He also criticized the national public forum on real estate policy as "a grand deception show that turned a blind eye to the cries from the ground," saying it had been exposed as nothing more than a staged event propped up by government-approved experts.

Lee said the reform package reflected "the arrogance and bias of someone who resents both people who buy expensive homes and people who rent them out." He added that it was "no more than Lee Jae Myung-style punitive politics trapped in factional logic, driven solely by votes rather than sound policy."

He warned that "the result of wielding punitive tax bombs to crack down on the wealthy and rental landlords will come back as the tragedy of a dried-up rental housing supply and skyrocketing jeonse and monthly rent prices." He said the government's stated goal of "suppressing the strong to help the weak" had in reality been exposed as a "housing catastrophe that ultimately crushes the vulnerable first."

Lee called on the government to "immediately halt this anti-market act of tax tyranny" and added that "if it is not withdrawn, the massive backlash of an enraged public will become the decisive trigger for the early collapse of this administration."


jshan@heraldcorp.com