The Lee family, which controls Samsung, has paid 12 trillion won - roughly $8 billion - in inheritance tax following the death of Lee Kun-hee in 2020. It is the single largest tax bill in South Korean history. The payment is being made in six instalments over five years.

The total value of the estate stood at 26 trillion won - shares, real estate, art collections. The heirs: Lee Jae-yong, chairman of Samsung Electronics, his mother Hong Ra-hee, and two sisters, Lee Boo-jin and Lee Seo-hyun. All four paid their share.

Today, the Lee family's combined wealth exceeds $45 billion - more than before the tax bill, because the AI-driven demand for chips has doubled Samsung Electronics' market value over the past year. They paid 8 billion in tax. They made far more.

Samsung is a textbook chaebol - a Korean family conglomerate with positions in electronics, heavy industry, construction and finance. Among the world's leading manufacturers of semiconductors and phones. The Lee family owns a sizable share - in the tax bill and in everything else. The fact that the tax came to 8 billion dollars and they got richer anyway tells you something about how big that share is.