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President Lee Jae-myung declared on June 1 that illegal real estate speculation and tax evasion will no longer be tolerated, vowing that South Korea will definitively break away from being a "republic of unearned property income."

President Lee posted the comment on X (formerly Twitter), while sharing a news article revealing that eight out of ten reports submitted to the National Tax Service’s (NTS) Real Estate Tax Evasion Reporting Center were concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area, including Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and Incheon.

Since taking office, President Lee has actively encouraged agencies like the NTS and the Fair Trade Commission to implement substantial financial rewards for whistleblowers exposing real estate tax evasion and price-fixing schemes.

In response, the NTS launched the Real Estate Tax Evasion Reporting Center in October last year, offering whistleblower rewards of up to 4 billion won.

The article shared by President Lee cited an analysis by the office of Representative Cha Gyu-geun of the Rebuilding Korea Party, a member of the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee. The data showed that 780 allegations of tax evasion were filed within the first five months of the center's launch, with approximately 81% concentrated in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon.

                                                                                                             Hong Sun-mi