부동산 공시가격 현실화 정책이 재산세 변화에 미치는 차별적 영향; 주택유형, 주택가격, 지방재정여건을 중심으로

부동산 공시가격 현실화가 주택 유형·가격대별 재산세 부담에 미친 영향을 분석했다.

This study empirically examines how the “Real Estate Official Price Realization Plan” affected property tax burdens across housing types, housing price levels, and local fiscal conditions. Using the Korea Institute of Public Finance’s Fiscal Panel data from 2019 to 2022, this study constructs Difference-in-Differences (DID) models to analyze changes before and after policy implementation. The results indicate that although the official price realization policy was implemented nationwide, the degree and pace of realization-rate adjustments differed by housing type and price bracket in practice.

Specifically, single-family houses, which had relatively lower realization rates, experienced larger increases than multi-family housing. For mid- to low-priced housing, the first three years of implementation placed greater emphasis on improving balance and equity rather than accelerating realization-rate increases. These differences in policy application produced heterogeneous policy effects. First, the housing-type analysis shows that after the policy was implemented, property tax burdens for households owning single-family homes tended to increase more than those for multi-family housing.

In the full sample, statistically significant positive policy effects were found for both the change in property tax amount and the change rate. Regionally, no statistically significant differences were identified between single- and multi-family housing in either the change amount or change rate in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. This may be because the rise in official prices in the metropolitan area had already been relatively rapidly reflected prior to the policy, making additional post-policy changes difficult to detect as new type-based gaps.

In contrast, in non-metropolitan areas, an increasing tendency for single-family homes was observed, with statistical significance confirmed only in the model using the log change in tax amount. This suggests that the policy effect was more apparent in the increased “amount” rather than the increased “rate.” Moreover, in the group eligible for preferential tax rates, coefficients for both the change amount and change rate were generally positive, implying that tax burdens increased even under tax-relief structures.

Meanwhile, in the non-eligible group, significant changes were limited for both indicators, suggesting that additional policy effects may have been constrained in segments already subject to relatively higher tax rates and tax bases. Second, the housing price bracket analysis finds that the policy contributed to reducing tax burden disparities for mid- to low-priced housing. This can be interpreted as an improvement in property tax equity across housing price levels after policy implementation.

The equity-enhancing effect was particularly pronounced in the KRW 300–600 million range, consistent with the policy background in which realization-rate increases were prioritized for mid- to low-priced homes. By contrast, for high-priced housing above KRW 1.2 billion, tax burden dispersion expanded, likely reflecting differences in the speed of official price reflection and realization-rate adjustments. Third, the analysis of local fiscal conditions indicates that fiscal self-reliance and fiscal autonomy function as factors shaping the magnitude and direction of property tax changes.

In the extended models including interaction terms with the policy period, higher fiscal self-reliance was associated with a significant mitigation of property tax increases following the official price realization policy. This suggests that local governments with stronger fiscal capacity face more limited expansions of tax burdens. This negative pattern was largely maintained in additional analyses for metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. In the metropolitan area, where the share of local taxes is higher and reliance on central transfers is lower, the need for aggressive revenue expansion may be relatively weaker.

In addition, local governments may have stronger incentives to manage tax burdens more carefully after the policy, given potential taxpayer resistance and housing-cost pressures. In non-metropolitan areas, where own-source revenue bases are weaker and dependence on transfers such as local allocation taxes is higher, relatively stronger local governments may have had greater capacity to absorb or adjust tax burden increases, thereby buffering the pass-through of the official price realization policy. Furthermore, in aging regions, both fiscal indicators acted as tax-burden mitigating factors, confirming that demographic structure is also an important determinant of property tax changes.

Meanwhile, the positive coefficient on the interaction term between the policy period and fiscal autonomy in non-aging regions suggests a distinctive pattern compared to other groups. Given more stable economic and demographic foundations and stronger policy responsiveness in non-aging regions, local governments with higher fiscal autonomy may have been more likely to actively reflect changes in tax bases induced by the realization policy, rather than prioritizing burden-smoothing.

Overall, although the official price realization policy was implemented under uniform nationwide standards, the resulting changes in property tax burdens differed substantially according to housing type, housing price levels, local fiscal capacity, and demographic structure. These findings demonstrate that the policy operated not merely as a mechanism for adjusting tax bases but also through complex interactions with housing market structures, local fiscal capacity, and population characteristics. This study contributes to the literature in several respects.

First, whereas prior research primarily focused on gaps between official prices and market prices or on imbalances in realization rates, this study empirically tests the policy’s effects on actual property tax burdens. Second, by jointly considering housing t