Recently, South Korea's Samsung Group announced that the family of its late chairman Lee Kun-hee will pay the inheritance tax on his estate by April 2026, which is also the largest inheritance tax in South Korean history.
The total inheritance tax left by Lee Kun-hee amounts to approximately 12 trillion won (about 54.9 billion RMB).
On April 9, Lee Kun-hee's widow Hong Ra-hee sold 15 million shares of Samsung Electronics through a block trade, priced at 205,237 won per share, with a total transaction amount of nearly 3.1 trillion won (about 14.3 billion RMB). After the reduction, Hong Ra-hee's shareholding in Samsung Electronics decreased from 1.49% to 1.24%.
To ensure the smooth execution of this large transaction, Hong Ra-hee signed a trust contract with Shinhan Bank in January this year, entrusting the bank to handle the share sale matters. The entire process strictly followed South Korean capital market regulations and did not cause significant impact on Samsung Electronics' daily stock price.
This cash-out is the last large-scale asset disposal by Hong Ra-hee in the past five years to pay the inheritance tax, marking the official conclusion of the Samsung family's five-year inheritance tax repayment plan that began in 2021, completely relieving the financial pressure that had troubled the Lee family for five years.
Since April 2021, Hong Ra-hee and her children Lee Jae-yong, Lee Boo-jin, and Lee Seo-hyun have fulfilled their tax obligations in six phases through the sale of shares in group subsidiaries and multiple rounds of share pledge loans.
On October 25, 2020, Samsung Group's &#34;spiritual leader&#34; Lee Kun-hee passed away due to illness, leaving behind a massive estate valued at approximately 26 trillion won (about 119 billion RMB), with core assets including substantial shares in Samsung Electronics, Samsung C&amp;T, Samsung Life, and other core subsidiaries, high-end real estate across South Korea, and a valuable private art collection.
According to South Korean tax law, the portion of the estate exceeding 3 billion won is subject to a maximum tax rate of 50%; when a major shareholder of a listed company inherits shares, the tax base must be additionally increased by 20% in valuation (control premium), resulting in an actual maximum tax rate close to 60%. According to the South Korean National Tax Service, the total inheritance tax for Lee Kun-hee reached 12 trillion won, setting a record for a single inheritance tax collection in South Korea.
In April 2021, the Samsung family officially declared the inheritance tax and selected a &#34;five years in six phases&#34; repayment plan based on South Korea's large inheritance tax installment payment policy.
The four core heirs share the tax burden according to their inheritance shares: widow Hong Ra-hee bears the highest share of 3.1 trillion won, eldest son and current chairman of Samsung Electronics Lee Jae-yong shares 2.9 trillion won, eldest daughter and president of Shilla Hotel Lee Boo-jin shares 2.6 trillion won, and second daughter and president of Samsung C&amp;T Lee Seo-hyun shares 2.4 trillion won.
South Korea requires heirs to complete the payment of inheritance tax before they can initiate procedures for transferring the estate and formally inherit it. Faced with astronomical tax bills, family members adopted starkly different fundraising strategies, creating a sharp contrast and reshaping the power dynamics within Samsung.
Hong Ra-hee, along with her daughters Lee Boo-jin and Lee Seo-hyun, chose to &#34;cut off their arms to survive,&#34; cumulatively conducting 16 share reductions over the past five years, gradually selling shares in core affiliated companies such as Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDS, and Samsung C&amp;T
From early small-scale batch sales to later large concentrated transactions, the three individuals cumulatively cashed out approximately 7.28 trillion won through continuous &#34;cutting losses,&#34; covering the vast majority of their tax liabilities.
Among them, Hong Ra-hee, as the heir with the highest tax amount, ranked first in both the frequency and scale of stock sales. In addition to this transaction of 15 million shares, she had previously reduced her holdings in Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDS multiple times. Lee Boo-jin and Lee Seo-hyun, besides selling stocks, also borrowed from financial institutions such as Hana Bank through equity pledges to temporarily fill the funding gap for tax payments.
However, Lee Jae-yong, who succeeded as the chairman of Samsung Group, did not sell the stocks under his name to stabilize the group's control but instead raised funds through dividends and bank loans.
On one hand, he receives dividends of hundreds of billions of won annually from Samsung-affiliated companies as a stable source of tax payment funds; on the other hand, through personal credit and equity pledges, he obtained large low-interest loans from multiple banks to cover the remaining tax liabilities. Although this strategy has placed a certain debt burden on him, it successfully preserved his core equity, with his shareholding ratio increasing against the trend: his stake in Samsung Electronics rose from 0.7% to 1.67%, in Samsung C&amp;T from 17.48% to 22.01%, and in Samsung Life from 0.06% to a significant 10.44%, thoroughly consolidating his absolute control over Samsung Group.
During the five-year tax payment period, the large-scale stock sales by the Samsung family raised market concerns, with outsiders worried that continuous equity dilution could shake the stability of Samsung's control.
To stabilize the stock price, Samsung Electronics launched a stock buyback plan worth 10 trillion won in 2024, effectively supporting the stock price and reducing market volatility, creating a stable environment for the family to pay taxes on their stock sales. At the same time, South Korean financial regulatory authorities and banking institutions also provided the family with trust, loans, and other supporting financial services to ensure the smooth progress of the installment tax payment plan.
Industry insiders expect that as financial pressures are alleviated, Lee Jae-yong will advance the &#34;New Samsung&#34; growth strategy, and Samsung Group is likely to enter a new development phase in the global technology industry competition.
The core purpose of South Korea's high inheritance tax is to curb the excessive concentration of wealth among chaebols and promote social equity. The Samsung family pays taxes in full and on time, setting a standard for other chaebols in South Korea. This incident also reflects the common dilemma of chaebol inheritance in South Korea: the high inheritance tax has become a core obstacle to family succession, with &#34;selling stocks to pay taxes&#34; and &#34;borrowing to maintain control&#34; becoming a dilemma.
The extremely high inheritance tax rate has also sparked considerable controversy in South Korean society. Some support strengthening the inheritance tax, arguing that the ultra-high-value inheritance represented by Samsung should return to public welfare, education, and welfare funding; while conservatives and the business community generally believe that taxing property that has already been taxed is essentially an infringement on property rights, and paying high inheritance taxes during the process of business succession creates excessive burdens, which may weaken the competitiveness of South Korean enterprises

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The Samsung family will pay the inheritance tax of the late former chairman Lee Kun-hee in April 2026, totaling approximately 12 trillion won (about 54.9 billion yuan), setting a record for the largest inheritance tax in South Korean history. To this end, Lee Kun-hee's widow Hong Ra-hee sold 15 million shares of Samsung Electronics through block trading, reducing her shareholding ratio to 1.24%. This transaction is the final asset disposal to settle the inheritance tax, marking the end of the Samsung family's five-year inheritance tax repayment plan. Lee Kun-hee passed away in 2020, with an estate valued at approximately 26 trillion won

26 trillion inheritance, 12 trillion tax, Samsung family "sky-high inheritance tax" finally paid off in five years