Samsung's Lee Family to Offload Picassos, Monets as It Settles Gargantuan Tax Bill

By Timothy W. Martin

SEOUL-- Samsung's ruling Lee family unveiled plans to pay one of the world's largest-ever inheritance tax bills, unloading rare Picasso and Monet paintings while trumpeting its extra donations for South Korean society.

South Korea's wealthiest family faces more than $10 billion in estate taxes, following the October death of Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee. The inheritance tax rate is 50% in South Korea and that can inch higher for the transfer of company shares. Mr. Lee's wife and three children had until Friday to detail how they would pay the bill.

Under local law, the Lees have up to five years to make full payment, which they plan to do in six installments with the first coming this month, Samsung said in a Wednesday statement. The 12 trillion South Korean won inheritance-tax bill, the equivalent to about $10.8 billion, is the country's largest ever.

"It is our civic duty and responsibility to pay all taxes," the Lee family said in a statement.

Alongside the tax-payment blueprint, Samsung said the Lee family would commit more than $900 billion to build new South Korean medical facilities and pay expenses for children afflicted by cancer or other rare diseases.

Roughly 23,000 pieces from Lee Kun-hee's private art collection will be gifted to two national South Korean museums. That includes pieces from Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Claude Monet, plus works of art that include 14 of South Korea's government-designated national treasures. The donations, which local media said were worth billions of dollars, reduce the taxable portions of Mr. Lee's estate.

Samsung is South Korea's largest conglomerate with dozens of affiliates, from consumer electronics to life insurance to theme parks. Before his death at the age of 78, Lee Kun-hee had been South Korea's wealthiest individual, a distinction he had held for the past 12 years, according to Forbes.

His son, Lee Jae-young, 52, was the country's fourth-richest person and had led Samsung since May 2014 when his father became incapacitated following a heart attack.

Lee Jae-yong since January has been behind bars, after receiving a 30-month sentence in a retrial of his 2017 conviction for bribing South Korea's ex-president. His prior time behind bars of roughly a year counted toward his new sentence, meaning he could be released in July 2022.

Write to Timothy W. Martin at timothy.martin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 27, 2021 22:18 ET (02:18 GMT)

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