부동산 보유세제의 개선방안: 종합부동산세 도입논의를 중심으로

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Currently, taxes on real estate ownership in Korea include Property Tax, Aggregate Land Tax and surcharges to the two taxes and all of these taxes are local. The Property Tax is levied mainly on buildings and the Aggregate Land Tax is levied only on land progressively. Recently, a drastic reform of the real estate tax system was proposed. The main features of the proposal are (1) introducing a property tax on all real estate including land and buildings replacing current system of taxing building and land separately and (2) creating a national real estate tax levied progressively on the value of personal real estate ownership exceeding prefixed threshold.

This thesis evaluated the reform proposal critically and derived some suggestions for successful implementation of the reform as follows:

(1) The "thresholds" of CRET should be selected in a prudent manner.
(2) The transaction taxes, that is acquisition tax and registration tax should be lowered even before the introduction of CRET. Real estate transaction taxes tend to have distortive effects in terms of resource allocation.
(3) A transparent process of real estate assessment should be established, creating an independent organization with relevant legal provisions.
(4) An appeals process should be introduced, whereby taxpayers not satisfied with the assessments may bring their complaints to the authorities for fair review.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Currently, taxes on real estate ownership in Korea include Property Tax, Aggregate Land Tax and surcharges to the two taxes and all of these taxes are local. The Property Tax is levied mainly on buildings and the Aggregate Land Tax is levied only on land progressively. Recently, a drastic reform of the real estate tax system was proposed. The main features of the proposal are (1) introducing a property tax on all real estate including land and buildings replacing current system of taxing building and land separately and (2) creating a national real estate tax levied progressively on the value of personal real estate ownership exceeding prefixed threshold.

This thesis evaluated the reform proposal critically and derived some suggestions for successful implementation of the reform as follows:

(1) The "thresholds" of CRET should be selected in a prudent manner.
(2) The transaction taxes, that is acquisition tax and registration tax should be lowered even before the introduction of CRET. Real estate transaction taxes tend to have distortive effects in terms of resource allocation.
(3) A transparent process of real estate assessment should be established, creating an independent organization with relevant legal provisions.
(4) An appeals process should be introduced, whereby taxpayers not satisfied with the assessments may bring their complaints to the authorities for fair review.