The heirs of Samsung will sell their Picasso, Mone …

The samsung heirs, South Korea’s largest consumer electronics, tech, finance, insurance, construction, biotech and services conglomerate, said on Wednesday that paintings by Picasso, Miró, Dalí, Monet, Chagall and Gauguin will be donated of your assets to reduce inheritance tax generated after the death of your father, in October 2020, for an amount of nearly $ 10.8 billion.

South Korea has very strict inheritance laws, with a very high tax rate. As reported the group of companiesFollowing the death of former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, who at the time of his death was the richest man in the country (he left an estimated net worth of 22 trillion won, which is equivalent to $ 19.8 billion), the heirs must pay “over 12 trillion won in inheritance tax, more than half of the deceased’s total estate ”.

“These inheritance taxes are among the highest claimed in Korea and in the world,” Samsung said in a statement, where it was reported that the family, including the group’s de facto boss, Lee Jae-yong, who is serving a sentence of two and one and a half years in prison for corruption, will pay them in six installments starting this month.

Samsung, whose flagship Samsung Electronics is one of the world leaders in smartphones and memory chips, accounts for a fifth of the GDP of South Korea, the world’s twelfth largest economy.

Artistic heritage

In addition to real estate and shares of Samsung Electronics, Samsung Life and Samsung C&T, Lee Kun-hee also had a impressive collection of works of art, appreciated by some media among 2 and 3 trillion won.

As announced by the South Korean group, the heirs 23,000 works from this collection will be donated, including 14 pieces from South Korea’s list of national treasures to be exhibited at the National Museum of Korea.

They will also donate to National Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA) works by Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí.

For local media, this donation will reduce the family’s tax bill. “If they had decided not to donate them and to give them to their children, they would have been subject to high inheritance taxes”said Kim Dae-jong, professor at Seoul Sejong University. “By donating these works of immense value, you are avoiding the tax and doing a good deed,” he added.

On the other hand, family will also allocate 1 trillion won to health charities. Half of the money will fund Seoul’s first infectious disease hospital.

Following the announcements, there have been numerous requests on social media calling for the release of the Samsung boss. Lee Jae-yong was sentenced in January to two and a half years in prison in a corruption scandal for receiving favors from former President Park Geun-hye, who left the government in 2017 implicated in the same affair.

Last week, five major South Korean groups also called for his release, saying his imprisonment was bad for the economy of the country as a whole.