住宅關聯 租稅의 合理的 改善方案에 관한 硏究

주택 관련 조세의 현황과 합리적 개선방안을 연구했다.

The purposes of the house-related taxes are to increase the revenues, redistribute the incomes, check the real estate speculation, and improve people's living quality through expansion of housing supply. In Korea, house-related tax rates are affected by government's tax policies rather than adjusted autonomously in the housing markets. In particular, the transfer income tax system focuses on control of the real estate speculations and thereby, it has been revised and supplemented.

The current house-related tax system including the transfer income tax is very contradictory in terms of acquisition, ownership and disposal of the houses, contributing less to control of the real estate speculations. Nevertheless, the government policies rely too much on the transfer income tax, producing various adverse effects. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; First, the effective tax rates based on the tax references need to be adjusted.

To be specific, the ownership tax rates (property and composite land tax rates) which is too lower compared with advanced nations', while the transaction tax (acquisition and registration tax) rates which are relatively higher need to be adjusted down, so that the local autonomous administrations can secure their revenues in a more stable and predictable way to design longer-term regional economic development plans flexibly. A higher ownership tax rate will serve to reduce the capital gains more over time and therefore, discourage the real estate speculations and even lock in the speculations.

Second, the acquisition and registration taxes imposed on the housing constructors tend to be transferred to the buyers only to increase the price of the houses. Therefore, it is necessary to classify the housing construction business into the manufacturing category and thereby, exempt or drastically reduce the acquisition/registration tax, while regarding the initial buyers as original owners. Third, the current transfer income tax system designed wholly to check the speculations needs to be rearranged.

Since the house-related taxes are specified not only by Income Tax Code, Corporate Tax Code and Special Tax Limitation Code but also by the ordinances of the local autonomous administrations, so it is very difficult for ordinary people and even experts to understand them all. Currently, the transfer gain from disposal of another small house is taxed, but the larger gain from disposal of another large house is not taxed. Therefore, the transfer income tax cannot serve well to check the speculations, while it accounts for only 2.6% of the national revenues. In particular, the transfer income tax on the houses account for only 0.1% of the national revenues.

Hence, it is deemed necessary to abolish the transfer income tax regardless of the number of houses owned, or as in such advanced nations including the United States, it needs to be converted into a deferment tax system. However, considering the effects on the speculative psychology due to a sudden change of system, it is desirable to continue to impose the transfer income tax on resale of the ownership, luxury or expensive houses and unregistered transfers, while exempting the small-size houses first and then, the medium-size houses from the transfer income tax.

Fourth, it is deemed necessary to revise the dualized tax rate references to set a single reference and thereby, improve the unbalance of tax burdens, and streamline the tax rates based on the actual transaction prices. Then, the problem of mosaic-like tax code revisions will be solved in a natural way. Lastly, the eligibility for the tax incentives involving house financing and rental houses is too narrowly specified, while the effects of the tax incentives are too minimal.

Therefore, it is recommended to expand the income or tax deduction benefits drastically for the money borrowed by the lower-income or homeless people, while providing an effective tax incentive to the remodeling projects to encourage the reinvestments in houses.