Only 139 Wealthy Individuals Leaving Korea Each Year? The National Tax Service Chief “Massaged” the Statistics!
Critics say the government downplayed the wealthy exodus by counting only reported emigrants.
[Choice Times=In-Kyu Park, Staff Reporter]
The day after President Lee Jae-myung denounced a report by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on the “outflow of wealthy individuals overseas” as “deliberate fake news,” National Tax Service (NTS) Commissioner Lim Gwang-hyun stepped in to support the president’s position.
On the 8th, Commissioner Lim posted on Facebook under the title, “‘2,400 Millionaires Leaving Korea Due to Inheritance Tax’?? Let’s Fact-Check This.” In the post, he stated that the average annual number of Koreans filing overseas emigration reports between 2022 and 2024 was 2,904, and that among them, those with assets of 1 billion won (approximately USD 750,000) or more numbered only 139 per year on average.
He added that average assets per person had been declining—from 9.7 billion won in 2022 to 5.46 billion won in 2023 and 4.65 billion won in 2024—and concluded that “no tendency has been found of people moving to countries without inheritance taxes simply because they are wealthy.”
However, former People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Hee-sook, who is expected to run for mayor of Seoul, argued that Commissioner Lim had “massaged” the statistics.
Below is the full text of Yoon Hee-sook’s post on social media. (Editor’s note)
After the Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy and the Commissioner of the National Tax Service, yesterday even the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, Kim Jung-kwan, stepped in to discipline economic organizations. Over the report on the overseas exodus of high-net-worth individuals, officials from the six major business groups were summoned and threatened with accusations such as “confusing the public and the market” and “forgetting their public responsibilities.”
It is embarrassing enough that ministers line up to join in scolding others the moment the president flies into a rage—evoking the image of a gangster’s performative violence—but what is even more problematic is the government’s cleverly constructed rebuttal materials.
Commissioner Lim claimed that among individuals with assets exceeding 1 billion won, only 139 people per year filed overseas emigration reports. But this figure counts only those among the 2,900 people who actually reported emigration to the Overseas Koreans Agency.
According to Ministry of Justice statistics, the number of people who lost Korean nationality in 2023 alone reached 25,400. So-called “nationality migration,” in which people avoid inheritance tax reporting or cumbersome procedures by simply changing their nationality locally, is not captured in the data released by the National Tax Service.
Take Singapore, one of the main destinations for high-net-worth individuals seeking to avoid inheritance taxes. In 2023 alone, 204 people renounced Korean nationality and acquired Singaporean citizenship. That number exceeds the NTS commissioner’s figure for wealthy individuals emigrating worldwide, and represents a 92% increase from the previous year.
Despite this, the NTS commissioner is deliberately citing selectively reduced statistics to induce an optical illusion among the public. Such blatantly intentional “statistical massaging” deserves serious disciplinary action, not mere scolding.
Why do this? It is an attempt to intimidate critics into not even mentioning inheritance tax relief, which the government itself once promised. During the last presidential election, when the People Power Party proposed the complete abolition of inheritance tax for spouses, then–Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung promptly said, “I agree unconditionally—let’s process it.” He also pledged to significantly raise deductions to prevent the tragedy of middle-class households in the metropolitan area having to sell their only home just to pay inheritance taxes.
But those promises amounted to nothing more than rhetoric; they were never included in tax law amendments. The government’s explosive reaction to a mistake by the KCCI is a Voldemort-style threat: do not even speak of inheritance tax issues. When someone gets this irrationally angry, it usually means there is something to hide.
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