A study for property evaluation and tax avoidance on inheritance tax : Based on the ruling by Japan's Supreme Court on April 19, 2022

The purpose of this study is to examine Japan's Supreme Court ruling on tax avoidance by heirs to avoid the burden of inheritance tax, and to derive implications for Korea from this. In Korea, market valuation is a principle for inheritance tax and gift tax, but in some cases, a problem has been pointed out that real estate is undervalued. We would like to examine what kind of judgment the Japanese judiciary has made in this regard. The target judgment was that the heir evaluated the value of the mansion purchased by the heir at the age of 94 with loans from banks at the age of 90 and 91, according to the evaluation method prescribed by the Basic Real Estate Evaluation. In response, the Supreme Court of Japan said, “If there is a reasonable reason to conduct a uniform evaluation of the property value included in the taxable price of inheritance tax according to the method determined by the assessment authority, there is a reasonable reason, so it is reasonable to interpret that the value of the property is in accordance with the value evaluated according to the method determined by the assessment authority.” The act in this case significantly reduced the inheritance tax burden. This creates an imbalance that is difficult to overlook compared to other taxpayers, and is contrary to the fairness of the actual tax burden. Taxpayers may engage in legal acts that are advantageous to them in tax burden within the scope not contrary to the tax law. In response, the customs office continues to deny the taxpayer's actions based on tax fairness. In Korea, there are discussions on various systems to improve the taxation equity of inheritance tax and gift tax. It should be seen that tax egalitarianism is realized through tax legalism. It should not be overlooked that the tax law is also aimed at guaranteeing the property rights of taxpayers, and this article is also meaningful to examine the judgment of the Supreme Court of Japan on these contents.