Korean lawmaker seeks gift tax scrutiny of 52 minors with billion-won bank balances

Twenty million won is the figure to hold against these balances. A minor can receive that much from a lineal ascendant over ten years before gift tax filing and payment apply ^[15]. On that scale a 100 million won account is five times a decade's allowance, and a billion-won account is fifty times it ^[3]. The ratio proves nothing by itself. The bank data does not show whether a balance came from gifts, inheritance or another route ^[16]. A child who inherited, or whose parents filed and paid the tax, sits in the same row as one whose parents did neither ^[16].

In the bank federation's figures, the growth at the top is ten names ^[1]. The billion-won group went from 42 at the end of last year to 52 at the end of July ^[5], seven months in which the group holding 100 million won or more added 12 ^[7][2]. Both counts sum each bank's customers separately, so a child banking at two lenders can be counted twice ^[7]. The same method can also hide a holder. A child with 600 million won at each of two banks lands twice in the 500 million to 1 billion won band, where 124 customers sit, and never in the billion-won count ^[7][8].

In money, the top tier is small. Accounts holding 1 billion won or more contained about 67.2 billion won, and all accounts above 100 million won about 514 billion won ^[13]. Those are about 0.7% and 5.3% of the 9.74 trillion won in minors' names ^[2][4][5].

The larger pool of big holdings is in shares. On the same end-of-year date, 5,400 minors held at least 100 million won in listed stocks, according to Korea Securities Depository data Park obtained ^[14], against 2,583 bank customers above that line ^[6]. The share count is about 2.1 times the deposit count ^[6], and the two lists may overlap.

Park, a People Power Party member of the National Assembly's National Policy Committee, released the bank figures on the 5th from data the Korea Federation of Banks submitted ^[3]. "There is no need to question legitimate gifts or asset building," Park said, "but we must closely examine whether there are blind spots in oversight of the sources of funds and gift tax filings when large financial assets are transferred to minors." ^[17] His request is for oversight of filings; the reported statement does not propose changing the 20 million won allowance ^[4][15].

One path is that tax authorities pull the gift returns behind the largest balances, a short list when Hana Bank and Shinhan Bank account for 26 of the 52 billion-won customers between them ^[9][8]. Another is that the request remains a committee member's data release. A person-level count could also show fewer billion-won holders than the bank-by-bank sum ^[7]. I think the evidence supports a look at a few dozen files and little more, because the cohort above 100 million won barely moved ^[6]. The counter-case is that a small cohort is cheap to audit, and ten new names are a practical place for a tax office to start ^[1]. The view is wrong if a count merging each child's accounts across the 19 banks ^[3] shows the billion-won group growing faster than ten names in seven months.