Gold Rush: Historic Tax Break Unleashed – Is the Stock Market Next

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The Democratic Party has finally decided to abolish the tax on financial investment income, the so-called ‘gold investment tax’, which imposes a tax on all income generated by financial investments.

Implementation was just two months away, but the People Power Party said it was welcome and agreed to speed up the process at this month’s plenary session.

This is reporter Jaeyoung Cho.

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The tax on financial investment income, also known as the “gold investment tax”, was expected to come into effect early next year.

This is a system that imposes a 20% tax on anyone earning more than 50 million won a year from stocks, bonds, funds, etc., but there has been continued opposition saying, “The stock market will collapse and it is disadvantageous for individuals.” investors”.

The leadership of the Democratic Party of Korea, which had been considering the issue by holding an unusual public debate on the pros and cons, finally decided to abolish the gold investment tax.

“The stock market around the world is on an upward curve, but Korea is the only one with a downward curve,” he said “The principle is to move forward even if it involves pain, but this is simply impossible ”.

[이재명/더불어민주당 대표]

“The stock market is so difficult and we cannot help but consider the position of the 15 million equity investors who rely on the stock market… so we have decided to accept its abolition.”

Rep. Lee Jae-myeong said there was a fear that “if we talk about postponement or improvement instead of abolition, it will constantly become the subject of political disputes with the government and the ruling party.”

The People Power Party, which supports the abolition of the tax on gold investments, immediately welcomed it.

[한동훈/국민의힘 대표]

“I welcome the decision of the Democratic Party of Korea to join the complete abolition of the gold investment tax, albeit late. In the end, there is no governing or opposition party in this type of people’s livelihood.”

“We will immediately start negotiations with the opposition party to handle the abolition of the gold investment tax in the November plenary session,” he said, also promising to do so quickly.

However, criticism came from the progressive reformist opposition parties, who stated: “A decision that only considered the votes in front of you without deep consideration”, “Only the ‘super ants’ of the richest 1% will will benefit” and “Another tax cut for the rich.”

[차규근/조국혁신당 의원]

“If the leader of the main opposition party participates in the tax reduction promoted by the government and the ruling party, who will protect the livelihood of the people?”

The gold investment tax was originally introduced by the Moon Jae-in administration as part of the capital market advancement and was easily passed by agreement between the ruling and opposition parties in the National Assembly in December 2020.

Originally, it was supposed to be implemented last year, but with growing opposition from industry and investors, the ruling and opposition parties secretly postponed the implementation period to next year and ended up taking the step of ‘abolition with only 58 days left before implementation.

I’m Jo Jae-young from MBC News.

Video Coverage: Kim Hae-dong, Kim Dong-se / Video Editing: Bae Woo-jin

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