[Editorial] GNP Wants Policy Designed for the 'Real Estate Rich'

The pains of making progress on the follow-up legislation to the August 31 Real Estate Measures are turning out to be worse than expected and that is cause for concern, because the Grand National Party (GNP) is frustrating efforts on key parts of what is being proposed. When it comes to the basis for comprehensive real estate tax, the government wants to have it be W600 million for housing and lower it to W300 million for land. The GNP wants to keep those at W900 million and W600 million respectively, and its own bill seeks to delay the timetable for making assessment standards realistic. It also wants to add many exception clauses to the "generational total" and exempt low-income elderly persons from comprehensive real estate tax if they own only one home worth under W1.5 billion. There are other elements, such as lowering the transfer tax rate, but this alone leaves the policy announced August 31 with no substance.

The GNP's proposal is nothing short of a policy designed for people rich in real estate. The basis for taxation according to the comprehensive real estate tax as included in the August 31 Real Estate Measures are what had been proposed when the comprehensive real estate tax was introduced in the first place. Then the ruling Uri Party kept that from moving forward and the result was that the whole policy was unable to prevent speculative real estate investment. Now that the ruling party has corrected its mistake, the GNP is taking the very same mistaken approach. It makes absolutely no sense to exempt low-income elderly up to W1.5 billion. Any home that officially is W1.5 billion is going to be close to W2 billion on the actual market. Anyone who is really "low-income" cannot handle the maintenance expenses on a home worth that much. Calling people that wealthy "low-income" is something even cows would laugh at. The fact that the GNP National Assembly members who are at the forefront in pushing for the GNP's version of the bill are from electoral districts in Seoul neighborhoods south of the Han River and proportional representatives also makes you suspicious of the GNP's motives.

There had been hopes the August 31 Real Estate Measures would be pulled back, ever since the GNP won an overwhelming victory in the October 26 by-elections. "Reconstructed apartments" in some areas are already seeing prices go up again. If the GNP wants to be able to promote itself as a party worthy of assuming power, it needs to look after the common people and the middle class. It needs to return to the attitude once had when it called for controls against speculative investment that were even more intense than those proposed by Uri.

The Hankyoreh, 12 November 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]