Supreme Court: "If Public Interest of Agricultural Infrastructure Is Weak, National Project Landfill Operator Owns It"

Even if the land was created through reclamation or other agricultural production infrastructure maintenance projects, the Supreme Court has ruled that if the land does not have strong public nature, it belongs to the project implementer.

Supreme Court

According to the legal community on the 6th, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Min Yu-sook) finalized the lower court ruling on the 18th of last month, which dismissed the appeal filed by the Korea Rural Community Corporation against 11 local governments including Goheung-gun and the Naju Tax Office, regarding the cancellation of property tax imposition.

The Corporation participated in large-scale government-led comprehensive agricultural development projects and the Southwest Coast reclamation project, acquiring reclaimed lands around the Yeongsan River area in Jeonnam and the Siwha Lake area in Gyeonggi. Tax authorities and local governments regarded these lands as owned by the Corporation and imposed comprehensive real estate tax, property tax, and local education tax from 2020 to 2021. Dissatisfied, the Corporation filed a tax appeal, which was dismissed. Subsequently, in October 2021, the Corporation filed a lawsuit seeking cancellation of taxation amounting to approximately 555 million won. In court, the Corporation argued that "the management and disposal rights of the relevant land belong to the state, and all costs and revenues arising from the land accrue to the state, so the substantive owner of the land is the state."

The first and second trials did not accept the Corporation's claim. The second trial court ruled, "Among reclaimed lands, agricultural production infrastructure facilities, which have very strong public nature in terms of use and require restrictions on private management and disposal, belong to the state in ownership; however, in other cases, ownership generally belongs to the implementer of the agricultural production infrastructure maintenance project or the reclamation licensee." The Supreme Court also agreed with the second trial's judgment and dismissed the appeal.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.