People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won has criticized the government's proposed real estate tax reform, asking whether it amounts to "a divorce incentive — the state encouraging couples to split up."
In a Facebook post Tuesday, Na weighed in on the controversy over plans to tax couples who jointly own a single home as if they were multi-home owners. "The punitive structure of squeezing couples who own just one home by treating them as multi-property owners is clear," she wrote.
She also rebuffed the government's explanation that taxpayers can simply choose whichever option is more favorable — individual assessment or the single-household exemption. "The reality is different," Na said. "It is coercion: pick either 'Tax Bomb A' or 'Tax Bomb B.'"
Na said that under the government's plan, the fair market value ratio applied to multi-home owners and homes in regulated zones would rise to a maximum of 80 percent starting in 2028. "If a couple does not apply for the special exemption on their jointly owned home, they will not be recognized as a single-homeowner exception and will be hit with that harsh 80 percent rate in full," she said.
She added that for non-residents, the basic deduction would shrink from 1.4 billion won ($989,000) to 900 million won. "It is clearly one home, yet when it comes to taxation, the absurd math becomes 0.5 plus 0.5 equals two," she said.
"It is no wonder people are saying you have to get divorced to avoid the tax bomb on jointly owned property," Na said, demanding an immediate and comprehensive review from scratch of what she called a "patchwork tax bomb that turns joint spousal ownership into shackles."
Former Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo also took to Facebook on Tuesday, listing a series of current government policies and writing, "All of this will cause President Lee Jae-myung's approval rating to collapse."
Hong said the government had once encouraged joint spousal home ownership, yet was now floating the "outlandish idea" of counting it as two homes for one household. He also said the government was introducing "the failed Moon Jae-in-style real estate tax system" by pushing to raise the publicly assessed land value ratio — typically around 60 percent of market price — to 80 percent, "dropping a tax bomb."
"Wielding power arbitrarily just because you have seized it makes for an unhappy president," Hong said. "Any administration that drifts away from public sentiment will always collapse."
Meanwhile, the government's legislative notice period for the tax reform plan runs through Aug. 20. The proposal is then set to go through a vice ministerial meeting on Aug. 27 and a Cabinet meeting on Sept. 1 before being submitted to the regular session of the National Assembly by Sept. 3.
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