South Korea's ruling party proposes bill to abolish spousal inheritance tax

On the 17th, South Korea's ruling party, the People Power Party, proposed a bill to partially revise the Inheritance and Gift Tax Act (hereinafter referred to as the Gift Tax Act), with a focus on the abolition of spousal inheritance tax.
The party's emergency response committee chairman, Kwon Young-se, announced in the afternoon that a gift tax bill would be passed that would "fully exempt" the spouse of the deceased from inheritance tax.
He was the lead sponsor of the bill to amend the law. Under the current law, spouses are allowed to deduct a minimum of 500 million won (US$516,700) and a maximum of 3 billion won (US$310,000).
The bill would remove this standard and exclude spousal inheritance tax even in the case of a family business inheritance deduction. All 108 members of the People's Power Party are on the list of co-sponsors of the bill.
At a meeting of the National Assembly's emergency response committee on the 6th, Chairman Kwon stated, "Inheritance between spouses who built assets together is not a transfer of wealth between generations," and expressed his intention to push for the abolition of spousal inheritance tax.
However, the date for the meeting of the tax system subcommittee of the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee, which will review the bill, has not yet been decided. Rep. Park Suyeong, who is the ruling party's secretary on the Finance Committee, said that as soon as the bill was accepted,
He later told reporters, "The opposition party is proposing a bill proposed by Rep. Lim Kwang-hyun. We will resubmit Rep. Lim's bill, so if two bills are submitted, we will go through the necessary procedures and hold a meeting with the tax subcommittee."
Regarding the proposed amendment and the government's inheritance tax policy, Rep. Park said, "(The inheritance tax) is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2028, and there will be no grace period of more than three years.
"We will put forward our proposal before that happens, and will hold further discussions once the government proposal is released," he said.