Bitcoin Magazine

South Korea Pushes 22% Crypto Tax to 2029 in Fourth Delay, Offers Three-Year Loss Carryforward

South Korea’s government plans to push back its tax on cryptocurrency gains by another two years to 2029, Finance and Economy Minister Lee Hyeong-il said Thursday, in what would be the fourth delay since the levy was written into law.

The tax is scheduled to take effect in January. To postpone it, the National Assembly must amend the Income Tax Act before then, and Lee said the government would seek lawmakers’ approval during this year’s regular session.

“It weighs heavily on me to propose another delay after the tax has already been postponed three times,” Lee said at a press briefing in Seoul.

Korea legislated the tax in 2020 for a 2022 start. It was then pushed to 2023, 2025 and 2027 as officials conceded that tax systems and investor protections were not ready.

The main reason for the new delay is data on overseas trading. When investors move tokens bought abroad onto a Korean exchange, the exchange may have no record of the purchase price needed to calculate a taxable gain.

That gap closes in 2029, when Korea and the United States begin exchanging information under the OECD-backed Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF. Introducing the tax before then could put Korea’s domestic crypto market at a disadvantage, the government said.

“Once we begin receiving cryptocurrency transaction data from the United States in 2029, we will have enough information to tax investors who use US exchanges on the same basis as those who trade in the domestic market,” Lee said.

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