부동산 보유세제 재설계를 위한 연구

The purpose of this article is to urge Korean legislators and policy makers to redesign the real estate ownership tax system. The property tax system can be used as an implementing instrument of real estate policy. But using tax law as a mean of implementing real estate policy is somewhat limited by the Constitution and the general legal principle. It is desirable to use tax system as an subsidiary vehicle of realizing real estate policy. If the purpose of the comprehensive real estate tax is to stabilize the real property price by suppressing speculation on housing market, the heavy tax burden for multi-home holders could be quite reasonable. However, it is not a sustainable tax system if people who have no purpose for speculation are also subject to serious tax burden. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest alternatives to solve these problems. I briefly compared several OECD member countries’ property tax systems. Most countries adopt a proportional tax rate for property tax rather than a progressive rate. In calculating the property tax base, those countries do not periodically evaluate each property and adopt a method of increasing the property tax base by a fixed limits each year based on the purchasing price. Based on the result of this study, I propose to convert progressive tax rate to proportional tax rate. In addition, real estate ownership tax should be imposed by reflecting the market price, but it is inefficient to evaluate the price of the property every year, and increasing the tax base by a certain percentage every year based on the transaction price reported at the time of purchase is a valid alternative. With these changes, the people who buy and hold real estate can predict future tax burdens, and the homeowners for residence purposes can be protected. Taxes favored by the majority are not always fair.