Samsung family to return 60% of Lee Kun-hee’s wealth to community

Apr 29, 2021, 08:05 am

		0
The late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee/ Source: Samsung Electronics

AsiaToday reporter Hong Sun-mi

The Samsung family has decided to donate about 60% of the assets of the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee to the community.

Lee Kun-hee’s heirs said they would pay more than 12 trillion won ($10.7 billion won) in inheritance taxes over the next five years. Separately, the Lee family decided to donate 1 trillion won for various philanthropic causes. Around 23,000 art pieces of Lee’s art collections, which are believed to be worth around 2-3 trillion won, will be donated.

The heirs, including Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Lee Kun-hee’s wife Hong Ra-hee, Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin, and Samsung Welfare Foundation Chairman Lee Seo-hyun, made the announcement on Wednesday.

“The bereaved family decided to pay the highest inheritance tax in history as well as promoting social contribution and donating to the community, in accordance with the will of the deceased Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who put much emphasis on coexistence management, which claims that the mission of a company is to contribute to the development of the national economy and improve human health and quality of life,” Samsung Electronics said in a statement released on behalf of the family.

Of the 1 trillion won contributed by the survivors, around 700 billion won will be spent to help the country overcome the novel coronavirus pandemic, including the establishment of a hospital fully dedicated to infectious diseases. The remaining 300 billion won will be spent as medical expenses for children suffering from cancer and rare diseases. The 1 trillion contribution is the promise that Lee Kun-hee made in 2008, when he stepped down as chairman after being accused of tax evasion.

Around 23,000 art pieces of Lee’s art collections, including 14 national treasures, will be donated to the National Museum of Korea. Around 1,600 contemporary art pieces, including works by Korean artist Lee Jung-seop and work by Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, and Pablo Picasso, will be donated to the National Museum of Modern Art. “Most of Lee’s art collections will be donated to the community,” Samsung said.

The 12-trillion-won inheritance tax of the Samsung family is three to four times the total inheritance tax revenue of the Korean government last year. Industry observers predict that the wealth left by Chairman Lee is over 30 trillion won ($27 billion).

The family plans to pay around 2 trillion won by the end of this month and pay the rest in six installments over the next five years.

The family did not reveal how the family members split Lee’s stockholdings among them.

#Samsung Electronics #inheritance tax #Lee Kun-hee