<Anchor> It's
friendly economy time. Today (1st) I will be with reporter Kim Hye-min. Yesterday, there were a lot of articles about the reduction of capital gains tax, please explain this in an easy-to-understand way for viewers.
<Reporter>
Capital gains tax literally means the tax you pay when you sell what you own. You don't always pay this tax. Tax is only levied on sales that exceed a certain threshold.
As for real estate, if a single homeowner per household owns the house for more than two years and then sells it, he or she does not have to pay capital gains tax.
Instead, if the transaction price exceeded 900 million won at the time of transfer, it was regarded as an expensive house and an exception was imposed on transfer tax.
During that time, house prices have risen sharply. So, there have been arguments that the transfer tax exemption conditions should be changed.
<Anchor>
How did the 900 million won standard change?
<Reporter> The
threshold for exempting capital gains tax has been raised from 900 million won to 1.2 billion won. So, from now on, if a household that owns a house owns a house worth less than 1.2 billion won for two years and then sells it, they will no longer have to pay capital gains tax at all.
In addition, even those who sell houses worth more than 1.2 billion won have the effect of reducing the transfer tax as the non-taxation threshold rises. The amendment to the Income Tax Act was passed by the National Assembly yesterday.
If it passes by the plenary session of the National Assembly tomorrow, this will be applied starting with the houses transferred after the promulgation date, as it usually takes 2-3 weeks to promulgate. So, it is expected that this rule will come into effect by the middle to the end of this month.
<Anchor>
Then it will be implemented at the end of this month. Then, in order to see this benefit, I think I will have to sell the house after that. Please explain in detail.
<Reporter>
I think it would be good for those who are going to sell this part to be aware of. If you want to apply the revised capital gains tax, you must transfer after the effective date.
The transfer date is determined whichever is earlier, between the registration date and the balance liquidation date. If the due date is early or mid-December, it would be safe to postpone this until next year.
However, some of these amendments have been criticized. With about 100 days before the presidential election in March next year, the politicians are reducing taxes as if they were favoritism. The government has also expressed its objection on several occasions.
Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki also said, "I am very concerned that it will stimulate anxiety in the real estate market," and said, "We need to be careful."
<Anchor>
Policy makers need consistency in policy to give stability to the market.
There is a lot of talk about this, but it can be a bit confusing, especially before the election.
Such criticism should be humbly accepted.
Lastly, you are saying that there is a possibility that the transfer tax will be lowered not only for single-homeowners but also for multi-homeowners?
<Reporter>
This kind of atmosphere is being sensed within the ruling party. When asked about the position of easing the transfer tax for multi-homeowners, Democratic lawmakers said, "We are reviewing without excluding them" or "This is because we have to pay a lot of tax in the process of transferring houses It is difficult to own and to sell,” he said.
Of course, this has not been confirmed yet.
Even within the Democratic Party, opinions are divided, but in the eyes of the public, it is easy to see the politicians as 'competition for lowering taxes' ahead of the election.
Experts pointed out, "Rather than reducing the transfer tax, it is necessary to think about housing policies for the homeless and the vulnerable with the tax collected."