Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon criticized President Lee Jae-myung's plan to abolish the long-term holding special tax deduction, calling it "a clear violation of citizens' property rights" and arguing that "Seoul residents will be the biggest victims."
In a Facebook post Thursday titled "Is This Another Tax Bomb After Wrecking the Market With Regulations?" Oh said, "We warned that under the Democratic Party, Seoul would become a real estate hell, and this administration is not deviating from that prediction."
"People who have owned and lived in their homes for a long time have nothing to do with speculation aimed at short-term gains," Oh said. "Branding even these people as potential speculators and extracting taxes from them is, in a word, extortion."
He added, "It is unusual for a president to effectively announce a tax hike just before an election. In a word, it is arrogance and impatience." He continued, "They are so arrogant, relying solely on their soaring approval ratings, that they do not hesitate to engage in this kind of extortion."
Oh pointed out that "the government rolled out the October 15 measures last year and the January 29 measures this year in succession, consisting of blind regulations and supply plans that drew only resistance. Far from curbing housing prices, the metropolitan area housing market is becoming even more dire." He noted, "Price increases are spreading from the outskirts of Seoul to the Han River belt, while jeonse and monthly rental listings have dried up to wasteland levels."
"Since they no longer have the confidence to rein in housing prices, they are now threatening with taxes to force listings onto the market," he said, criticizing the move as "incompetent, irresponsible, and unprincipled."
Oh said, "Housing prices have risen over the years, and taxing those gains effectively strips away the constitutional freedom of residence and relocation. If people pay a pile of taxes when they sell their homes, what money are they supposed to use to secure the home they want?"
Oh called on Jung Won-oh, the Democratic Party's candidate for Seoul mayor, to state his position. "Does candidate Jung agree with President Lee's lies and about-face?" Oh asked. "As a candidate for Seoul mayor, will you turn a blind eye to the enormous damage to citizens and remain silent before an exploitative regime?"
