Officials from Seoul's Seocho-gu visit the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Thursday to deliver 2,461 opinions submitted by district residents. [Seocho-gu]
Officials from Seoul's Seocho-gu visit the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Thursday to deliver 2,461 opinions submitted by district residents. [Seocho-gu]

Seoul's Seocho-gu district office said Friday it visited the Ministry of Economy and Finance in Sejong on Thursday to deliver 2,461 residents' opinions on the government's "2026 real estate tax reform proposal," collected over three days.

The reform package, announced by the government on Aug. 3, centers on shifting the basis for comprehensive real estate tax and capital gains tax from the number of homes owned to actual residency status and property value. It would ease the tax burden on owner-occupiers of a single home while tightening levies on high-value, non-owner-occupied and multi-home holdings. The long-term holding special deduction for capital gains tax would also be restructured into a long-term residency income deduction based on how long a taxpayer has actually lived in the property.

The proposal is still at the government draft stage and is set to be submitted to the regular session of the National Assembly in early September after going through a legislative notice period and a Cabinet meeting. Its contents could change during the Assembly's deliberation process.

The district office collected opinions through online and in-person channels through Wednesday to gather residents' views from the front lines of local tax administration and relay them to the central government. It said 2,461 submissions arrived within three days of the collection opening.

"We did not selectively filter residents' voices or rewrite them to reflect the district's own position — we delivered all 2,461 submissions to the government exactly as received," a Seocho-gu official said.

According to the district, a prominent theme running through the submissions was not simple opposition to higher taxes, but the argument that people who have owned and lived in a single home their entire lives should not be held to the same standard as those who hold multiple properties for speculative purposes.

Common appeals included: "Home prices have risen, but my income has not"; "Long-term single-home owners should not be treated as speculators"; and "People who held their homes for years trusting the existing rules should not suddenly face a new tax burden."

Residents also raised concerns that rapid implementation of changes such as the long-term holding special deduction could force people to leave homes they have lived in their entire lives due to the resulting tax burden. There were also requests that "1+1 housing" units that inevitably arise for association members during reconstruction and redevelopment projects be granted tax exemptions equivalent to those for single-home households.

The district separately submitted three recommendations to the government: establishing tax relief measures that account for the payment capacity of long-term single-home owners, ensuring sufficient transitional provisions to give existing homeowners predictability, and setting reasonable tax standards for non-resident single-home owners.

Seocho-gu will also hold three rounds of a "real estate tax reform residents' briefing" starting Tuesday. Registration on a first-come, first-served basis for a total of 1,320 participants has already closed, reflecting strong interest from residents. The district plans to post video recordings of the sessions on YouTube afterward.

"Residents' submissions reflect a real concern that they may have to leave the homes they have lived in their whole lives simply because property prices have risen," Seocho-gu District Chief Jeon Seong-su said. "I hope the government will carefully listen to the voices from the ground that citizens are actually experiencing during this tax reform process and come up with reasonable supplementary measures."


ken@heraldcorp.com