Deposit accounts worth more than 100 million won held in the names of minors are increasing, as early gifting to transfer financial assets to children in advance grows more common.
According to data submitted to Rep. Kim Sang-hoon of the People Power Party by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) on the 9th, the number of savings and deposit accounts worth more than 100 million won held by minors (aged 0 to under 19) at the four major banks (KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, and Woori) rose from 1,861 at the end of last year to 1,940 as of the end of May this year, an increase of 79 accounts, or 4.2%.
By amount bracket, accounts holding between 100 million won and 500 million won accounted for the majority. The number of accounts in that range grew from 1,746 at the end of last year to 1,829 at the end of May this year, an increase of 83. Accounts holding between 500 million won and 1 billion won fell from 89 to 84 over the same period, while ultra-high-value accounts holding 1 billion won or more increased from 26 to 27.
Under current law, minor children are granted a gift tax deduction of up to 20 million won over 10 years. However, the billion-won-range accounts shown in this data hold at least 100 million won each. This differs from small-scale gifting made simply within the deduction limit. "Recently, there has been demand to transfer funds while children are young and manage them over the long term, even at the cost of bearing the gift tax burden," a financial industry official said.
This trend is also emerging in the financial investment market. According to Mirae Asset Securities, the number of stock accounts held by minors rose from 642,815 at the end of last year to 879,780 at the end of May this year, an increase of 236,965.
The expanding scale of gifts to minors is also confirmed in the gift tax filing figures on the National Tax Service's national tax statistics portal. In 2024, the scale of gifted assets to minors (under age 20) reached 2.1671 trillion won, surpassing 2 trillion won for the first time. The number of gift tax filings was 14,178, accounting for about 9% of the total number of filings (153,557).
