Crypto19 October, 20262 min read
South Korea Meets Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, GOPAX Over Virtual Asset Tax Delay
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Korean officials to meet five crypto exchange CEOs on Oct 20 to discuss tax delay. Finance officials consider delaying the virtual asset tax start date by two years.
Meeting on Oct. 20
South Korea planned an on-site meeting on virtual-asset taxation on Oct. 20 with the chief executives of Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and GOPAX, as well as officials from DAXA, the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance.
Kwon Dae-young, first vice minister at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and Yoo Young-jun, director-general for digital finance policy at the Financial Services Commission, were set to attend the consultation to review tax-system preparations and hear industry requests.
The government said it was proceeding with follow-up steps on the assumption that the tax will take effect in January, while industry representatives argued that tax standards and related infrastructure have not been fully established.
Lim Kwang-hyun, former commissioner of the National Tax Service, said during a parliamentary audit on Oct. 13 that the government was preparing to announce detailed rules on virtual-asset taxation around November.
The planned agenda also included the lack of clear tax guidelines for transaction types including staking, airdrops and decentralized finance, or DeFi.
Calls to Delay
A bill introduced by Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Min-gyu sought to postpone the tax until Jan. 1 of the second year after South Korea begins sharing data under OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF.
An exchange official told Yonhap that unresolved transaction rules and limited time to prepare infrastructure supported postponing the tax, saying, "Standards for different transaction types have not yet been finalized, and time is running short for practical preparations on the infrastructure side."
The same exchange official added, "There is a shared view in favor of postponing the start of taxation," as the finance ministry prepared to meet major exchanges.
Cointelegraph said South Korea’s senior finance officials were reportedly set to meet crypto exchanges on Tuesday, days after the legislation was introduced that could push the tax’s start date back two years.
Bloomingbit said the meeting would review the status of tax-system preparations at each exchange and hear about operational difficulties and requests for improvements tied to the new regime.
Survey Finds 93.3% Support
The Seoul Economic Daily released a survey ahead of the planned start of South Korea’s virtual-asset tax next year, finding 93.3%, or 28 respondents, wanted the levy postponed. The survey reported that 86.7% of respondents answered negatively when asked whether the National Tax Service can accurately identify and tax transactions on overseas exchanges and private wallets. The Seoul Economic Daily said 80% of respondents pointed to setting tax standards for specific transaction types such as staking and airdrops, while 76.7% said rules for calculating acquisition prices and gains or losses need to be overhauled.
The survey also reported that 90% judged investors are inadequately prepared to file, and it said 63.3% cited building a simplified filing system as an urgent task. The Seoul Economic Daily said 70% of respondents wanted the basic deduction raised from 2.5 million won, with the remainder taxed at 22%, and it reported that 56.7% projected a drop of 30% or more in trading volume at major domestic exchanges after the tax takes effect.