This is the largest tax amount given by Samsung in South Korea and is three times the revenue of total estate tax of the entire country last year.
Samsung’s founding family will donate thousands of rare artworks, including Picasso and Dalis, and hundreds of millions of dollars for medical research to pay the tax paid after Chairman Lee Kun-hee’s death. Samsung on Wednesday informed that Lee’s wife and their three children are expected to pay tax of 12 trillion won ($ 10.8 billion).
It is the largest tax amount in South Korea and three times the total estate tax revenue of the entire country last year. Lee’s family will pay this tax payment in five years and 6 installments and its first installment will be given this month.
To increase control over Samsung’s business empire, it is extremely important for the Lee family to mobilize cash for tax payments. Some analysts say that this process can result in a change in the entire group. The family may be able to make a payment if given to Lee’s Masterpiece Artwork Collection and the family will not have to make any payment on the donated artwork.
23,000 artworks will be donated
The family plans to hand over 23,000 artwork from Lee’s personal collection to two government museums. This includes old Korean paintings, books and other cultural assets designated as national treasures, paintings of modern Korean artists. These include the works of Park Soo-Keun and Lee Jung-sep, and the works of Mark Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Paul Gavin, Claude Monet, Joan Meiro and Salvador Dali.
In addition, the Lee family will donate one trillion won (about $ 900 million) for the treatment of children suffering from cancer and rare diseases, and for research on infectious diseases.
Caught in corruption cases and his son
Let me tell you that Lee Kun-hee made Samsung Electronics from a small television manufacturer to a world leader in the field of semiconductors and consumer electronics. But he was also accused of having links with politicians and promoting corruption. After this, he was hospitalized for many years after the heart attack in 2014 and died in October.
After Lee’s death, his only son and corporate heir, Lee Jae-yong, took over as vice president of Samsung Electronics and is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for his involvement in a 2016 corruption case.
