The amount of lineally inherited and gifted assets has reached nearly 113 trillion won ($99 billion), surging about 42 percent in the last five years, according to data compiled by the National Tax Service Tuesday.

The report, submitted to Rep. Yang Kyung-sook of the ruling Democratic Party, showed that the accumulated amount of inter-family asset inheritances and gifts came in at 112.98 trillion won in 2019. It was up by 33.27 trillion won or 41.8 percent from some 79.68 trillion won marked in 2015.

The increase in asset transfer between family members was led mostly by asset gifts that surged 89.8 percent to 74.95 trillion won. The value of inherited assets, meanwhile, fell 4.4 percent to 38.87 trillion won, over the cited period.

“Followed by the reduced deduction rate on inter-family asset inheritances and donations, people tended to gift assets in advance. Raising taxes on owners of multiple homes and surging housing prices appear to have contributed in the rapid increase in the asset gifting amounts,” Yang said, adding the proportion of gifting real estate assets had expanded the most.

According to the statistics, 169,911 cases were subjected to taxation, or 42.4 percent of the total number of gifted asset cases reported. The combined value of such cases marked 29.39 trillion won, or 39.7 percent of the total. The top 0.1 percent, or 170 cases’ assets, added up to some 2.94 trillion won, nearly 17.32 billion won-worth per case.

Around 16.48 trillion won, or 42.4 percent of the accumulated amount of inheritance assets, were also subjected to taxation. The number of such taxed individuals came to 8,357, or 2.4 percent of the total. The top 1 percent, or 84 taxpayers’ totaled assets, recorded 2.87 trillion won, about 34.24 billion won- worth per person.

By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)