Housing owners in Korea have a variety of tax advantages such as income tax exemption for the imputed rent of owner-occupied housing, exemption from the capital gains tax and deduction of the estate tax for one-house households. These tax reliefs for housing owners not only conflict with the principle of horizontal and vertical equity, but also lead to resource misallocation by distorting the housing market, and thus bring about regressive distribution effects. Particularly in the case of Korea with its imperfect capital market, these measures exacerbate the inter-class inequality of housing ownership as well as inequalities in wealth, by causing the affluent to demand needlessly large housing, while the poor and young experience difficulties in purchasing residential properties. Therefore, the Korean tax system must be altered as follows in order to disadvantage owner-occupiers, especially those owners of luxury housing. These alterations will promote housing-ownership, tax burden equity, efficiency of resource allocation, as well as the desirable distribution of income. First, income tax deductions for the rent payments of tenants are recommended. Ideally, the way of recovering the fiscal equivalence between the owner-occupiers and tenants is to levy an income tax on the former's imputed rents, and if necessary to give them tax credits. This, however, would be very difficult from a practical viewpoint, because the general public may perceive the concept of "imputed rent" as cumbersome. Computing the imputed rent also entails administrative costs, rendering quite reasonable, the continued exemption of imputed rent from taxation with the simultaneous deduction in the income tax for tenants. This would further enhance the administrative efficiency of income tax collection by easing assessment of the landlord's income. Second, a capital gains tax should be levied on the one-house household, except with the postponement of payments in the case that the seller purchases higher priced property. Exemption of the capital gains tax for the one-house household favors those who have more expensive housing, providing an incentive to the rich to hold even larger residences, and to the constructors to build more luxurious housing to meet the demand. So it is not desirable to sustain the current one-house household exemption while merely supplementing it with fastidious measures. Rather, the rule must be abolished completely with the concurrent reform of the deduction system and lowering of the tax rate, measures which the author believes will help optimize the capital gains tax incidence. Finally, discontinuation of the housing exemption for the heir is suggested. Consequent increases in the tax burden of the middle class could be mitigated by a reduction in the rate. This applies to the following specific exemptions as well, namely, for farm lands, meadows, woods, business fields-to foster horizontal equity, while denying speculation on land that leads to a loss in allocative efficiency. Moreover, imperfections in the Korean capital market have disallowed the provision of long term credit for housing seekers. Remedying these problems is essential to the promotion of greater housing ownership by the low and middle income classes. It is also certain that a government subsidy be focused on the poorest of the poor who cannot afford even to think of owning a housing.