Capital gain is the capital asset's disposal value which increases in economic value over time, and the margin compared to that asset's acquisition costs. In broad terms, the concept includes unrealized gains, but due to difficulty in taxation, insuff...
Capital gain is the capital asset's disposal value which increases in economic value over time, and the margin compared to that asset's acquisition costs. In broad terms, the concept includes unrealized gains, but due to difficulty in taxation, insufficiency in liquidity etc, most countries exclude unrealized gains from catpial gain taxation. On this capital gain taxation, theoretically there exists the taxation support theory and the taxation objection theory, but most countries acknowledge taxation on capital gain itself. However, there is a difference in the degree or range subject to those eligible for capital gain taxation. Meanwhile, on the housing capital gains, which is the basic unit for living, most countries give out privileges on taxation.
Korea, in order to provide housing stability and freedom of movement to the people, have exempted capital gains tax on one housing for one generation, ever since capital gains tax was put in to practice. However, the same system has been utilized as a policy for adaptation to circumstances leaving behind the fundamental objective to tackle increase in housing price or speculation of real estate through the short-term capital accumulation process due to rapid economic development. As a result, it has not been effectively able to contribute to the people's housing welfare, and have caused problems in many aspects such as fairness of tax, economic efficiency, and tax system rationalization.
The precedented research points out these problems mostly on the abolishment of tax-exemption perspective, while suggesting improvement methods on housing capital gains deduction, housing tax deduction, tax defer, tax exemption etc. However, this report sees that for basic residential rights based on law purposes, the maintenance of tax-exemption on one housing for one household is appropriate, and understands the problems that arise through the same system's management through each factor of tax-exemption and suggests an improvement. To summarize this is as follows:
First, in the light of household and housing conditions, the range of acknowledgement by the spouse, donation and household disguise separation, unauthorized housing, residential office-tel problems are pointed out. The acknowledgement by the spouse problem means that written regulations are non-existent on actual marriage acknowledgement by income tax law article 154 item 1 which defines the term one household, and thus allowing arbitrary application of law through interpretation of the tax bureau or national tax judgement decisions. To apply law uniformly within the legal system, a legal supplement for judgement on households based on legal marriage is necessary. Meanwhile, through the donation on special parties and disguised separations of households many multi-housing owners unfairly are exempted from tax, so on this, strict and limited definition of article 154 item 2 of the income tax law which allows individual household privileges, normalization of capital gain tax on free transfer asset through the adoption of 'free transfer taxation method' or 'acquisition value inheritance method', develop and utilize the 'object social security number inquiry system' to prevent the tax-exemption system in being used as a means of tax-evasion. Problems with unauthorized housing and residential office-tels are loose in the tax management of the bureau, and in most cases these are exempt in counting of housing. In the case of unauthorized housing, the 'law related to submission of tax data' should be revised and collected appropriately, and through cooperation with relevant ministries, the real estate trade management system should be improved, and in the case of residential office-tels, through the 'object social security number inquiry system', suspected residential office-tels should be counted and while strengthening data collection, all data such as amount of electricity used for identifying the real usage purpose of the office-tel should be collected and reflected in the real estate trade management system in order to provide a systematic device that can easily figure out whether if its residential or not without actual investigation.
Second, in light of the possession and residence conditions, there were problems with union member residential rights' possession period, general insufficiency of residential period, residential period exceptions etc. Current administrative interpretations are that in former union member residential rights' transfer, residential status' possession period is not included in the possession period of tax-exemption decision and long-term possession special exemption. However, national tax precedent cases show a different position with the tax bureau's interpretation, which brings about chaos. The union member residential rights should be seen as housing and since they have tax-exemption privileges or high-value housing tax regulations applied to, the residential rights' possession period should also be calculated in the same light, and even in the case of inheriting union members' residential rights when not removed, the construction period should be calculated in the possession period, and this would be fair when comparing to former union members' residential rights. Meanwhile, in order to effectively achieve the one-housing for one-household tax-exemption system's policy objectives of the people's residential welfare, the residential condition should be strengthened. To induce possession of housing as an actual living means from means of increasing wealth, a minimum of 3 years of residence should be a requisite condition, and in the application of long-term possession special exemption, the same residential conditions should be applied. Also, tax exemption should be applied to temporary 2 household privilege regulations only where it is for residential transfer objectives, and during redevelopment periods the acquisition of tax-exemption privilege regulations of substitute households should be abolished.
Third, in the case of price and registration conditions, there were problems with compatibility of high-value housing regulations in regards to local tax, the appropriateness of standard of high-value housing, unregistered sales of housing and union members residential rights. If the high-value housing regulations have an objective of excessive consumption of housing or suppression of possessing luxury goods, the standards for facilities or area should be re-established and the high-value housing regulations and appropriateness should be maintained. Meanwhile, the high-value housing concept was adopted in attempt to prevent excessive tax-exemption on people with high-income and improve fairness on taxation, but the standard of value is too high and even the method of identifying actual trade value is vague, which blurs its purpose. For its alternative, the 'marginal profit excessive residence' concept was suggested, in which for the case of transfer profits exceeding a certain amount, the exceeding amount is taxed, and this contributes to residential stability to middle-class families and recover the income tax function on capital gains. Problems with unregistered sales show that based on current law, heavy tax or exclusion from tax-exemption based on income tax regulations cannot be applied to the speculators' sales actions which utilizes rights on real estate, which is common. For residential unregistered sales, even in the case of sales in the form of rights to acquire real estate, the relevant regulations should be set for heavy tax etc, to apply, and for union members' residential rights, the registration for land being omitted and sold should be included in the unregistered transfer, and for this, legal supplement is required.