Samsung's Lee family to pay over $10.8B inheritence tax (opens in new tab)

You aren't obligated to accept anything given to you as a gift or in a will.

That seems very far-fetched. For one, you can refuse gifts. Furthermore, I'd assume that the tax is based on fair market value, and if they can't sell the building because no one wants to buy it, doesn't that mean that the market value is $0?

The Samsung family have been engineering this for about two decades. Lee Kun-hee was convicted twice for stuff relating to this.

The issue they have is retaining control over Samsung whilst having to pay inheritance tax. This is why the stock price rose significantly when Lee actually "died", he obviously legally died before that point the coverup was to maintain control over Samsung, because it looks like they have finally lost control.

So yes, these laws are taken pretty seriously.

Btw, the thing about the gift is true in most countries. The reason why should be obvious: if you could just gift before someone dies then no-one would pay inheritance tax. It is usually a few years: so if you receive a gift and the granter dies within a few years then it is subject to inheritance tax.

But that doesn't make any sense. The building should have to be sold first before appraising its value. Non-withstanding the difficulty of timing your own demise, I think you could at least reject the very dubious gift at least?

You can refuse gifts, you can also forfeit the building as payment. Banks have stupid money to lend.

This is propaganda.

You could refuse the gift?

Generally the gift tax rate is comparable to the estate tax rate to avoid this loophole. From a quick Google search it seems the gift tax in South Korea can be up to 50%.

No one person is being double taxed. The deceased was taxed once and then the inheritor is taxed once.

The aggregate outcome of government taxation is as a deterrent to sitting on piles of cash that year. Most fiscal policy via taxation is incentivizing the private property owner to create certain kinds of transactions in the economy, and if they fail to do so then the government runs a calculation on the remainder.

Thats the outcome whether any individual representative or tax policy expert would say that. The private persons operate within the existing world and have no utility in making an opinion on the purpose of tax, only reacting and playing within the system.

As such, it is surprising then that this family has not created transactions that would mitigate or nullify the state’s claim on their property.

Unless all the tax money is used for subsidies/grants etc for companies owned by the elite/.01%.

Sounds like a good capital allocation by the government at the time! I'm guessing Samsung paid them back?

Any sectors that the Korean government is funding well or should be funding better these days?

Thanks! Is there any percentage of tax to the Korean government where your answer would change? It seems everything you wrote is true whether the tax is 1%, 10%, 30%, or the 50% that occurred here, let alone greater amounts.

Is there a different outcome of the distribution of this money that you would support as well?

It seems the primary constant is that this family of directors should not steward it.

As an outside observer, not from Korea, I'm the opposite of bothered that a wealthy person had orgies with prostitutes. That wouldn't be an example of odd to me, it wouldn't be a euphemism for another stronger word, and it would have no bearing on my opinion of whether they get a haircut on their estate.

This is useful context as nobody else has replied yet.