<Anchor> As



Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee passed away, it is estimated that the only inheritance tax owed by the bereaved family exceeds 10 trillion won.

With this astronomical inheritance tax scale, some of the business and politics have argued that Korea's inheritance tax rate is too high.

This inheritance tax, aimed at preventing the inheritance of wealth and eliminating inequality of opportunity, is really excessive in Korea, so let's first compare it with other countries.



Reporter Jeong Seong-jin explains.



<Reporter> What



you see is the inheritance tax rate in Korea.



After various deductions, a tax rate of 10% to 50% is applied depending on the table.



Let's compare it to other countries.



Looking at the highest inheritance tax rate in major OECD countries, Japan is the only country with 55% higher than Korea, France, the United States and the United Kingdom are in the 40% range, and some countries do not have an inheritance tax at all.



The claim that'the inheritance tax in our country is excessive' comes from this simple comparison.



But what's important is not the nominal tax rate, but the percentage of the actual inheritance tax paid, ie the'effective tax rate'.



Although the tax authorities do not officially count it, according to the 2018 data from the National Assembly Budget Office, the effective tax rate was 27.9%, and last year, the head of the tax office of the Ministry of Finance said that it was around 19.5%.



Next, how many people will pay the inheritance tax?



As of 2018, there were about 350,000 deceased, or heirs, of which only 0.003% or 12 had inherited property over 50 billion won.



This is an extreme case of the family of the late Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who is considered one of the richest people in the world, and it is unreasonable to argue that Korea's inheritance tax is excessive.



Basically, the Korean Constitution makes it a duty of the state to properly distribute income and prevent abuse of economic power.



As there is an important purpose of resolving the inequality of opportunities between classes due to the inheritance of wealth, sufficient taxation on inherited property is more justifiable than any tax.  



▶ "The situation is different for each inheritance tax country"

"Inappropriate during trial"