I see another comment here questioning whether the South Korean government can really be trusted to be good stewards of that much money. I don't know. Samsung has certainly done a lot for the country. Maybe the kids would do just as much good as the father. Let's not pretend government has done nothing for them, though. The Samsung family today hasn't starved in a famine or been executed by a despot because of the actions of governments. My old battalion, the 3/8 CAV, was nearly completely wiped out in a single day back in 1950 in Unsan trying to ensure South Korea was able to exist at all.[2] This was the single bloodiest day in 1st CAV history.
[1]: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2020/09/367_295260.h...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/28/samsung-inheritance-lee-fami...
https://www.reuters.com/business/samsungs-lee-family-pay-mor...
For example you can gift someone a expensive building right before your death, because when you do die, they will be forced to pay so much inheritance tax, that they would have to sell the building, since selling the building is quite hard, it is likely the person will just go bankrupt, or go to jail.
EDIT: I misremembered something. The gift wasn't before death, it was on the will. ie: person die, and "target" inherits some expensive crap he can't sell.
The issue they have is retaining control over Samsung whilst having to pay inheritance tax. This is why the stock price rose significantly when Lee actually "died", he obviously legally died before that point the coverup was to maintain control over Samsung, because it looks like they have finally lost control.
So yes, these laws are taken pretty seriously.
Btw, the thing about the gift is true in most countries. The reason why should be obvious: if you could just gift before someone dies then no-one would pay inheritance tax. It is usually a few years: so if you receive a gift and the granter dies within a few years then it is subject to inheritance tax.
This is propaganda.
I have to wonder, there's a huge incentive to instead have the person somehow give huge gifts to everyone before death, right?
So the Seoul National Art Museums will be getting some lovely new additions to their collections.
I have no idea how efficiently the Korean govt distributes capital, but there are other reasons inheritance taxes are a good thing. Primarily because they limit the concentration of generational wealth in the 0.1%.
Thats the outcome whether any individual representative or tax policy expert would say that. The private persons operate within the existing world and have no utility in making an opinion on the purpose of tax, only reacting and playing within the system.
As such, it is surprising then that this family has not created transactions that would mitigate or nullify the state’s claim on their property.
It's been a while since I read the book (Bad Samaritans I think it's called), but I believe he offered them large government backed loans to move out of palm oil production and into more profitable areas like semiconductors.
Any sectors that the Korean government is funding well or should be funding better these days?
Kun-hee seemed like a very odd guy (there are videos online, people who posted this in SK got picked up by the NIS, of him having orgies with prostitutes). Jae-yong is less offensive but has a reputation as an incompetent. Success came in spite of their leadership, not because of it (the mobile business, in particular, seemed totally accidental...central office actually tried to stop the US mobile business growing).
Inheriting wealth doesn't mean you inherit talent.
Is there a different outcome of the distribution of this money that you would support as well?
It seems the primary constant is that this family of directors should not steward it.
As an outside observer, not from Korea, I'm the opposite of bothered that a wealthy person had orgies with prostitutes. That wouldn't be an example of odd to me, it wouldn't be a euphemism for another stronger word, and it would have no bearing on my opinion of whether they get a haircut on their estate.
This is useful context as nobody else has replied yet.
I would read more about Kun-hee...the issue with the orgies is not moral judgement, the issue is that it paints a picture of someone who has a lot of other stuff going on: he spent almost no time at work (reportedly, he was obsessed with films and spent 95% of his waking time comatose watching films), he made others treat him as essentially a God...which, tbf, he basically was in SK...he was convicted of serious crimes twice, he oversaw massive political corruption (he gave literally tens of millions to individual politicians, his total bribes are probably in the billions), he gave impromptu incoherent rants that lasted multiple days that senior execs had to attend, no-one was allowed to make eye contact or look at him whilst their eye level was higher than his, factory workers weren't allowed to park within eyesight of his office, anyone who met him had to eat a mint before they spoke to him...this is just a small subset of the crazy shit...it is always funny to me that people will abandon all logic in order to reflect in their own self-regard (the reason why people say having prostitutes with orgies doesn't matter is because they want other people to know they are very liberal and forward-thinking...if you actually care about making money, it is difficult to think of a worse sign).
His comatose film obsession is just as detrimental to his ability to make money as spending too much time with illegal sex workers. The commonality would be addiction, or more specifically neglecting other obligations. If neither of those things caused one to neglect other obligations, then there is nothing liberal and forward-thinking about not caring about the activity.
I think it's based on comparable buildings and what they sold for recently.
For any billionaires out there, if you have unwanted buildings or want to punish me with a large tax bill, I will accept the punishment. Call me maybe!
A common version of ADHD happens when the person brain doesn't produce enough dopamine, so the person in question keeps seeking more, so people with ADHD often have addictive behaviour, even to stuff people didn't considered addicting at all.
But this variation of ADHD also can make the person a high performer, often the best dopamine kicks come from doing interesting work, for example coders doing new stuff or fixing really bizarre bugs, or a CEO having to navigate the company through a very tricky situation.
There is some resaeerch trying to figure out if it has a link to hunter genes (ie: people with this variation would be more inclined to hunt, and be persistant during hunting, at same time switching targets if necessary, but these adaptations make the person poor in following schedules, thus a poor farmer)