In South Korea, art pays taxes: the case of the Samsung heirs

Dizzying figures and family scandals. What will be the fate of Lee Kun-Hee’s collection?

The heirs of Lee Kun-Hee , patriarch of the giant Samsung , South Korea’s richest man and passionate art collector who died last October, will have to pay an inheritance tax bill of astronomical figures: $ 11 billion on total assets of $ 20 billion, or about 50% of the entire estate.

This is news that comes at a very delicate moment for this powerful family, recently hit by two scandals : the two and a half year prison sentence that the heir and current head Lee Jae-yong is serving due to a sentence for corruption and embezzlement, and the recent attempt by the family to settle the legal costs related to this process with only the assets of the collection.

The payment to the tax authorities by the heirs will take place in five years , since according to the OECD it would be the highest figure in the country and in the world: “it is three or four times the revenue collected in the sector by the Korean government last year “, he said. confirmed the Lee family.

Also for this reason, the payment to the State will not only take place through the currency, but also through the sale of goods .

The family art collection, therefore, made up of more than 23 thousand works, will be donated to state museums in the country.

Among these, there are paintings by famous authors of Western art including Monet , Dalì , Gauguin , Mirò , Picasso , Basquiat , Chagall and Warhol as well as unique pieces by Korean artists, antiques and literary works by national writers.

Important pieces in the collection include works such as Alberto Giacometti ‘s 1960 sculpture , Tall Woman III , and a 1962 painting by Francis Bacon , Figure in a Room , which according to the Korea Economic Daily are worth 140 million and 133 million respectively. dollars.

Specifically, 14 of these works by Monet , Chagall and Picasso involved in the donation and considered “national treasures” according to South Korean press reports, will be donated and exhibited permanently at the National Museum of South Korea and at the National Museum of Modern Art and Contemporary .

According to the family, the sale of the works will confirm Lee’s ” passion for art ” and ” his faith in the importance of passing on our cultural heritage to new generations “.

Certainly the donation of works is essential to allow museums and institutions to grow and evolve. Before any movement of the works, however, it is necessary for the collector to check the documentation of each individual work, in order to deal in advance with any possible problem.

With Art Rights , a platform to support the management and certification activities of the works of artists, collectors, foundations and art professionals , it is possible to create a digital archive of the works, collecting any information, document and passage in a simple and totally safe way. .

Thanks to Blockchain technology and a sophisticated Validation system by third party users, Art Rights offers the possibility to create Art Rights Certificates , real Passports of the work of art to create a Value Chain to protect the quality and authenticity of the artwork. ‘artwork.

And you, are you ready to donate your works of art?