Na Kyung-won accuses Lee government of 'loan double standard,' says president sold home to dodge taxes

People Power Party lawmaker Na Kyung-won took aim at the Lee Jae Myung government on Monday, calling it a regime defined by a "vicious loan double standard — where loans are available only for allies while everyone else is shut out."

Writing on her Facebook page, Na cited the Lee government's ongoing discussions on real estate tax reform and President Lee's recent apartment sale, labeling the administration a "'loan double standard' government."

"This is the Lee Jae Myung Democratic Party government — one that clamps down on ordinary citizens' loans and real estate transactions with endless regulations, while its own members pocket enormous profits from private-credit deferred purchases," Na said. "What is even more shocking is that the moment the president sold his home through a mortgage-backed deferred-payment scheme, a 'tax bomb' landed on ordinary citizens."

Na added that National Tax Service Commissioner Lim Gwang-hyeon had attacked the long-term holding special deduction for single-homeowners, calling it the "pinnacle of regressivity" and "unearned income." Lim said on his X (formerly Twitter) account on Sunday that the current long-term holding special deduction is structured regressively, with more expensive homes receiving disproportionately larger benefits.

Na said President Lee had enjoyed the full tax discount from the long-term holding special deduction before selling his home, then moved to abolish it and strip citizens of their assets. She added that she suspected Lee had rushed to sell his property through an "interest-free mortgage deferred-payment scheme" — an extraordinary method — just before moving to scrap the deduction, in order to avoid a tax burden of more than 500 million won ($341,000).

Na also questioned what would happen to the president's unearned income, asking whether it should be returned to the public treasury. She further challenged why the NTS commissioner — the head of an enforcement body — was pushing for tax reform, a power that belongs to the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the National Assembly, and asked whether President Lee had directed him to do so.

Na called the situation "a textbook example of a privilege cartel — throwing an inescapable tax bomb at citizens while the president himself slips out through a mortgage escape hatch," and said that even floating the idea of tripling the property holding tax was "a shameless notion."

She argued that the long-term holding special deduction "is not a policy that encourages speculation, but a minimum safeguard to prevent an excessive tax burden on single-homeowners who have lived in one home for decades." She added that "it is absurd to take one extreme case involving an ultra-expensive property, blow it out of proportion, and brand ordinary middle-class residents and owner-occupiers as speculators."

Na said she would "firmly reject any new tax increase that kills citizens twice over," and called on the government to immediately halt its push to triple the property holding tax and abolish the long-term holding special deduction, to scrap what she called the "mortgage double standard" real estate policy, and to immediately allow citizens normal access to bank loans currently blocked by regulation.