Samsung's heir became executive chairman after paying Korea's biggest-ever estate tax

When Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee died in October 2020, he left a 26 trillion won fortune of shares, property and art. South Korea taxes large estates at up to 50%, one of the highest rates in the world, and the bill — about 12 trillion won, or roughly $8 billion — was the largest settlement in the country's history. Lee Jae-yong had been running the group de facto since his father's 2014 heart attack, but his criminal conviction in the bribery case that toppled President Park Geun-hye, and his imprisonment, left the succession legally and reputationally stalled.

The family chose openness. Regulatory filings on 30 April 2021 split the estate openly: each child inherited about 22% of the late chairman's shares, widow Hong Ra-hee 33% — making her the largest individual shareholder in Samsung Electronics at 2.3%. Jae-yong took half his father's 20.76% block in Samsung Life Insurance, lifting his stake from 0.06% to 10.44%; with C&T's holding that gave him about 30% of the insurer, the hinge that controls Samsung Electronics. The first 2 trillion won installment was paid that day; Picassos and Dalís went to the National Museum of Korea.

The formal handover came a year later. On 27 October 2022, five months after a presidential pardon ended Lee's prosecution, the Samsung Electronics board named him executive chairman, citing 'the current uncertain global business environment and the pressing need for stronger accountability and business stability' — the same quarter the company reported a 31% drop in profit amid the memory-chip downturn.

By May 2026 Samsung confirmed the final payment: 12 trillion won, equal to roughly one and a half times the country's total inheritance tax revenue for 2024. The stake structure the 2021 filings created — the family dispersed, the control chain intact — carried the house into its third generation without a forced share sale.

The C&T–Life–Electronics control chain held without a fire sale; Jae-yong became executive chairman in October 2022 and the ₩12tn tax was settled by May 2026

South Korea's 50% top rate on a ₩26tn estate would otherwise have forced the heirs to sell shares large enough to break the C&T→Life→Electronics control chain.

Transparent filings were the price of legitimacy after the bribery conviction: disclosed, split stakes drew less scrutiny than the opaque circular shareholdings that had defined the group.

Staged installments matched the bill to the family's liquidity — dividend-paying shares stayed in hand while the payments ran through 2026.

The board's 2022 appointment closed a six-year leadership question mark with governance language, timed to steady investors during a chip downturn.

Donating the art collection to national museums converted tax strategy into public goodwill at the moment public opinion mattered most.

When death duties rival a control stake, succession is a liquidity plan. Paying the bill in transparent installments — not selling shares or hiding ownership — is what let the family keep the company.

The appointment settled into a normal chairmanship. Samsung confirmed in May 2026 that the family had finished paying the 12 trillion won bill — the largest estate settlement in Korean history — with Lee Kun-hee's Picassos and Dalís at the National Museum of Korea. The heir who was a twice-convicted, pardoned de facto boss in 2020 ended the process as a confirmed executive chairman with the founding family's control structure legally intact, its stake dispersed among the widow and siblings but its ownership chain unbroken.