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Number of Minors with High Financial Income Rises for Third Consecutive Year
424 Elementary School Students Also Report Large Financial Gains

The number of minors who reported more than 20 million won per year in financial income such as interest and dividends has exceeded 1,600.

On September 13, Yonhap News, citing data submitted to Min Jinseok, a member of the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, from the National Tax Service, reported that a total of 1,606 minors filed financial income in the 2024 comprehensive income tax return process.

The number of minors reporting financial income surged from 2,068 in 2019 to 3,987 in 2020. It decreased to 1,327 in 2021, but then increased for three consecutive years: 1,395 in 2022, 1,461 in 2023, and 1,606 in 2024. According to the current tax law, if a person’s annual financial income, including interest and dividends, exceeds 20 million won, they are subject to comprehensive financial income taxation and must file a comprehensive income tax return.

The photo is not directly related to the content of this article. Photo by Yonhap News.

The total income reported by these minors in 2024 was 166.91 billion won. On a simple calculation, this amounts to an average of about 104 million won per person. Of this, financial income accounted for 154.689 billion won, representing the vast majority. Non-financial income totaled 12.22 billion won.

Breaking down the financial income, dividend income was the largest component at 137.678 billion won, while interest income accounted for 17.012 billion won. Notably, since dividend income comprises a significant portion of total financial income, it indicates that these large financial returns were not simply from deposit interest alone.

By age, there were no filers aged 0, but there were five 1-year-olds. The total financial income reported by these five children was 197 million won, averaging 39.4 million won per person.

There were also a significant number of cases where preschool children reported large amounts of financial income. 122 were aged 5 or younger, while 424 were within the typical elementary school age group (6–11 years old). There were 376 in the middle school age group (12–14), 489 in the high school age group (15–17), and 195 were 18 years old.

A notable point from these statistics is that most of the minors' financial income did not originate from labor or business activities. It is presumed that a considerable portion came from interest and dividend income generated by investing assets, previously transferred from parents or others, into financial products or stocks.

Accordingly, there are calls for further post-facto verification of whether gift tax declarations were properly made during asset transfers to minors and whether real ownership matches the registered names.

Assemblyman Moon pointed out that it is highly likely the phenomenon of minors earning tens of millions of won in financial income is the result of asset transfers from parent generations, emphasizing, "The National Tax Service should strengthen post-management of pre-gifted and borrowed-name assets registered under the names of minors."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.