Opposition's Lee Su-jin: "Capital Gains Tax Relief on Stocks Benefits Only Top 1 out of 5,000"
Assemblywoman Lee Sujin: "Only 0.024% of All Listed Stockholders Receive Benefits"
[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] As the government is pushing for an amendment to the Income Tax Act to ease the capital gains tax major shareholder threshold from the current KRW 1 billion per stock to KRW 10 billion or more, the opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea, has pointed out that only a very small number of people will benefit from the tax exemption due to the change in criteria.
This is based on an analysis of the '2020 Shareholder Status of Listed Corporations' data, which the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Soo-jin (Seoul Dongjak-eul), a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee, received from the Korea Securities Depository and disclosed on the 6th.
According to the data, with the government's easing of the tax criteria, people holding stocks worth between KRW 1 billion and less than KRW 10 billion per stock will receive tax exemption benefits, but this accounts for only 0.024% of all listed stockholders, totaling 11,445 people.
In particular, since this figure is calculated based on the amount held per stock by shareholders, the number is expected to decrease further when duplicates are excluded, leading lawmaker Lee to argue that this tax criteria easing is essentially a policy for ultra-wealthy individuals.
The government previously announced a tax reform plan to postpone the implementation of the financial investment income tax, scheduled to start in January next year under President Yoon Seok-yeol's pledge to abolish stock capital gains tax, by two years and to ease the current capital gains tax threshold for stocks to KRW 10 billion.
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Lawmaker Lee said, "The government claims this is not a tax cut for the ultra-rich, but the number of people who will receive tax exemption benefits by easing the capital gains tax major shareholder threshold is less than one in 5,000," adding, "The activation of the stock market should not be used as a justification for tax exemption for the ultra-rich."
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