The vast majority of Korea's comprehensive real estate tax assessed last year was borne by the top 10% of taxpayers.
According to the National Tax Statistics Portal of the National Tax Service on Monday, the comprehensive real estate tax assessed last year, including both land and housing components for individuals and corporations combined, totaled 4.8565 trillion won. Of this, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 4.242 trillion won, accounting for 87.3% of the total.
The comprehensive real estate tax is a progressive tax system in which the rate rises as the tax base increases. As a result, the tax burden has continued to be concentrated among top taxpayers with large asset holdings. However, the share borne by the top 10% fell 0.9 percentage point from the previous year's 88.2%.
The tax share of the top 10% to 20% bracket was 5.3% (259.4 billion won), while the top 20% to 30% accounted for 2.8%, the 30% to 40% bracket 1.7%, and the 40% to 50% bracket 1.1%. The combined tax share borne by the remaining half of taxpayers fell short of 3%.
By age, the share of the elderly stood out. The number of individual comprehensive real estate taxpayers last year totaled 548,177, of whom 284,950 were aged 60 or older, accounting for 52.0% of the total. In detail, those in their 60s numbered 153,543, while those aged 70 or older numbered 131,407.
The tax borne by these payers was 753 billion won, accounting for 57.1% of the individual comprehensive real estate tax assessed (1.3195 trillion won). This means that more than half of the actual tax amount, not just the number of taxpayers, was concentrated among the elderly.
The average tax per person was also higher for the elderly. The average comprehensive real estate tax for all individual taxpayers was approximately 2.41 million won, but those aged 60 or older averaged 2.64 million won, 230,000 won more than the overall average.
This is interpreted as reflecting the concentration of assets in real estate such as housing and land rather than financial products, particularly among the retirement generation. Even if income has declined, the comprehensive real estate tax burden can grow if the value of owned real estate is high.
The number of minor comprehensive real estate taxpayers was also not small. Last year, taxpayers under the age of 20 numbered 363, and the total comprehensive real estate tax they paid was 700 million won. The average tax per person was calculated at approximately 1.93 million won. Comprehensive real estate taxpayers in their 20s numbered 1,926, and the tax they paid amounted to 4.9 billion won, or an average of 2.57 million won per person.
