Samsung’s heirs are committed to art and hospitals in the inheritance tax agreement

The family of former Samsung patriarch Lee Kun-hee has pledged billions of dollars in health care and arts donations and vowed to pay $ 11 billion in one of the world’s largest estate tax bills.

Continued Lee’s death in October, South Korea’s most powerful family had six months to inform tax officials how they would deal with the country’s richest man’s estate, including a $ 20 billion cash wealth tax bill of 60 percent.

In a rare public statement, the family on Wednesday made philanthropic donations, including hundreds of millions of dollars to treat childhood cancer, a hospital for infectious diseases and vaccine research.

The family will also provide Lee 23,000 artwork cache and antiques for South Korean museums. The personal collection includes masterpieces by Salvador Dalí, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso, as well as famous Korean artists such as Park Soo-keun, Lee Jung-seop and Kim Whan-ki.

The Samsung group, which began marketing dried fish and vegetables when it ruled the Korean peninsula in Japan in the 1930s, is one of the world’s leading producers of computer chips and smartphones among a wide range of electronic devices and components.

Lee was a second-generation Samsung chair directed by the company becoming a global powerhouse of technology.

The donations, the family said, “will preserve their heritage and help create a better society.”

The family also vowed to pay more than Won12tn ($ 11 billion) in inheritance-related taxes. They said the taxes will be paid in five installments.

“It is our civic duty and responsibility to pay all taxes,” they said, noting that “the payment of inheritance tax is one of the largest ever in Korea and worldwide, three to four times. [South Korean] total government property tax revenue last year ”.

No further details were provided.

The public image of the family has been clouded imprisonment in January Lee Jae-yong, son of the chair headed by Samsung, for bribery related to his inheritance.

According to local analysts and people familiar with the situation, the family initially planned to make most of the bill through bank loans backed by its holdings, as well as money from payments for larger dividends from Samsung group units. Lee Kun-hee’s legacy includes stakes in Samsung Electronics and smaller businesses such as Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung C&T.

Park Sang-in, a professor of economics at Seoul National University, said the family allegedly failed to reach an agreement to distribute the shares it inherited due to the imprisonment of Lee Jae-yong.

Analysts have not ruled out that Lee family should expropriate Some stakes in Samsung companies are a solution that could give outsiders rare opportunities to catch mice in the conglomerate.

However, control of Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of the family’s business empire, is expected to continue with Lee Jae-yong.

“It won’t be a big deal to pay the bill in installments. They can increase the payment of dividends by Samsung companies, take bank loans with shares as collateral and sell some stakes in small businesses, which will not affect their control over the main units, ”he said, not appointing local mediation chiefs.