National Tax Service Commissioner Lim Kwang-hyun said on the 13th that President Lee Jae-myung's sale of an apartment in Bundang is not subject to taxation, adding that he had been briefed to that effect.
Lim made the remark at a parliamentary audit of the National Tax Service by the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee, after People Power Party lawmaker Bae Joon-young said the president's transaction was a case involving large private debt and tax issues that the agency had pledged to verify.
"Regarding the president's case, the relevant division under my authority reviewed whether taxation applied, based on material that had been made public through the media, and I was briefed that it was not subject to taxation," Lim said.
In July, President Lee sold an apartment in the Bundang district of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, which he had jointly owned with his wife, Kim Hye-kyung, for 2.9 billion won ($2.0 million). As part of the deal, he, as creditor, registered a mortgage of 1.777 billion won listing the buyers as debtors.
Opposition figures had criticized the arrangement, saying the president, who tightened lending rules, had reaped substantial gains by using private lending as a workaround to circumvent those rules.
When Bae cited an online post claiming that someone who bought a home in the same manner after seeing the president's transaction was audited by the Seoul Regional Tax Office's third investigation bureau, Lim said the bureau's involvement suggested there may have been a specific reason, such as the buyer's young age. "We would need to look at the precise facts to make a judgment," he said.