this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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When someone dies, something happens to the assets they own. It doesn't matter what happens or how it gets divided, but the South Korean government takes 50%.
I explain myself poorly.
The state getting a 50% cut over total value of assets and money is a no brainer. If one million is left in cash+stocks+bonds+property, 500k goes to the state, although I think it's a bit cloudy when it comes to paying tributation on property.
But a company has - usually - its own legal status. A company by itself is an entity that can not by cut up at will, unless dissolved and reformed under diferent parts.
Seems like there should be an easy way for any BIG company: a stock split. Any company that has shares, even private shares, can be forced to undergo a stock split of which the government gets half. Boom, government owns half the company. To get more surgical about it, only shares held by the deceased would be split.
Smaller companies don't have such an easy mechanism but it seems to me they would cause less chaos.
Of course, this seems like a colossal incentive to never incorporate in Korea.
Presuming there is such a structure. Non traded companies can have huge values without having a stock structure.
And what is the logic of a government owning a part of a company by default when what really matters is receiving the corresponding liquid monetary value?
There are specific sectors where state must hold objective interests and in some cases even hold complete control but most sectors are more of liability than an asset to a government.
The company isn't necessarily broken up, but the shares of the company are owned by individuals, and those shares go to the government. To your point, you could keep "the more valuable shares", but the shares are valued in currency by both you and the government, so it's kind of hard to say which are more valuable than others
We all seem to be thinking towards openly traded companies but how small(er) companies would go through such a process?
A traded company is not a head splitter to tax as an inheritance: shares are owned in a given number, there is a given number of heirs, each share has a given publicly tradeable value. Keeping with the Korean example, if there are 100.000 shares to split between two heirs, each heir receives 50.000 shares, which at a spot valuation of $2, implies each heir has to pay $50.000 in taxes, the 50% cut for the state.
I don't really see any logic in the state entering in true possession of company actives when what is due is its monetary value, which can be paid in cash by the heirs.
But a non-traded company will not be as easy to tax because it has no easily measurable value. A father leaving a company with a total social capital of $100.000 to two or three sons can in fact be leaving a company with a lot less true value, after considering loans, assets, values due to pay and receive, etc. And such an entity is not easy to split into equal parts.