주택에 대한 과세제도의 합리적 개선방안 연구 - 7․10 부동산 대책을 중심으로 -

The purpose of the recent real estate tax system revision following government’s new property policy released on July 10 was to protect ordinary citizens who want to buy a house by preventing the speculations on residential property and stabilizing home prices. The revised tax plans, in summary, impose heavy acquisition tax on multiple homeowners at the acquiring stage, comprehensive real estate holding tax for possessing houses, and capital gains tax when selling the house. This study reviews the tax systems for residential properties at stages of acquisition, possession and transfer based on the new July 10 real estate policy. It also evaluates the taxation plans and presents the reasonable improvement plans. First for acquisition tax, the government raised the tax rate following the policies of Singapore that applies high acquisition tax rate. The real estate tax system needs to comprehensively consider the taxation in three steps of acquisition, possession and transfer as all of them are closely correlated to each other. But it seems that government’s new policy has not fully involved a comprehensive review. Moreover, the tax rate for house acquisition through gift was heightened to 12%. This means different tax rates are applied depending on the acquiring method, so such discriminate application of tax rate is not considered to be based on a legitimate reason. Therefore, the acquisition tax rate for house gift to 12% could be against the principle of horizontal equality of the tax. For comprehensive real estate tax at the stage of possession, the tax credit benefit for senior citizens and long-term holding is only applied to households that own one house under single person’s name. This could also violate the principle of horizontal equality because the tax credit regulation is applied differently for the same property depending on whether it is under a single name or joint names. With regard to the capital gains tax imposed at the stage of selling, the period of residence was added to the conditions for receiving special tax deduction for long-term possession. As a result, taxpayers cannot get the tax benefit anymore simply by owning the house for a long time and without living in that house. The new policy could seriously infringe the principle of horizontal equality as it generates a huge difference in tax burden even for the same property that was acquired on the same date but transferred on a different date. That is because the policy applied different deduction rate on residence period, which could have a direct impact on the transfer income tax burden, and did not prescribe the minimum period of residence for receiving the tax credit benefit on long-term possession. Under the Framework Act on National Taxes, it could be judged the new policy does not violate the prohibition on retroactive taxation in itself. However, it takes a long time to fulfill the requirements for receiving the special deduction for long-term possession, and the government needs to consider protecting taxpayers’ trust on the taxation system. In addition, the July 10 real estate policy excludes apartments from the long-term general private rental housing type, so apartments are no longer subject to the tax preferential treatment applied to long-term general private rental housing, thus unreasonably discriminating apartments compared to other residential buildings, which is contrary to the policy of tax equality. Also, due to the automatic cancellation of the rental house registration after 8 years, the requirement of 10-or-more-year renting cannot be fulfilled in principle. As a result, the trust can be breached for people who sought to receive the tax benefit by satisfying the ten-year rental period requirement. This study offers four suggestions as reasonable improvement plans for the tax system related to residential property. First, it is desirable to delete the acquisition tax rate regulation for the house acquisition as a gift. Second, it is necessary to revise the regulations for comprehensive real estate tax, applying the same tax credit benefit for senior citizens and long-term holdings also to those possessing just one house regardless of being under single person’s name or couple’s name. Third, in case of the capital gains tax, the authorities should consider preparing sufficient transitional regulations before applying the revised special tax deduction for long-term possession. Fourth, regarding the special capital gains tax stipulated under the Restriction of Special Taxation Act, it is necessary to come up with exceptional rules for the apartments registered as long-term general private rental type so that the owners of such apartments can receive 70% special tax credit for long-term retention or 100% exemption of capital gains tax just as before if they lease the house for more than 10 years. This study has a great significance in that it reviews and evaluates the tax system related to residential property reflecting the July 10 real estate policy at three stages of acquisition, possession, and transfer. It will also present the future direction of real estate policies by suggesting reasonable improvement plans.