Bitcoin Magazine

South Korea Weighs Fourth Delay of Crypto Tax, With 2029 Start Tied to U.S. Data Sharing

South Korea’s presidential office is reviewing a fourth postponement of the country’s 22% tax on crypto gains, with a 2029 start date gaining support among lawmakers and industry groups.

The tax is scheduled to take effect January 1, 2027. The presidential office said it is in talks with government agencies about a delay, citing gaps in the regulatory framework and the problem of treating domestic and overseas trades the same way, according to Newsis reporting.

The levy dates to a 2020 amendment to the Income Tax Act. It applies a 20% national rate plus a 2% local rate to annual income from the transfer or lending of virtual assets above a 2.5 million won ($1,888) deduction. The start date was set for 2022, then pushed to 2023, 2025 and 2027 as officials conceded that tax systems and investor protections were not ready.

The U.S. data problem

The argument for 2029 rests on the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, the standard under which tax authorities swap crypto transaction records with one another. South Korea is among the first group of jurisdictions set to begin exchanges in 2027. The United States does not join until 2029.

A presidential office official told Newsis that the absence of U.S. trading data is the biggest bottleneck. Without it, the National Tax Service would have to chase overseas transactions one by one, and Korean traders on domestic exchanges would carry a heavier burden than those on foreign platforms or in self-custody.

On October 16, Democratic Party lawmaker Park Min-gyu and 13 colleagues filed a bill that would push the tax to January 1 of the second year after the first international data exchange, which works out to 2029. People Power Party lawmaker Song Eon-seok filed a separate bill to strike the crypto tax provisions from the law.

The Korea Digital Asset Business Association backed the 2029 date Thursday and asked the government to pass a digital asset law with stock-market-grade investor protections before any tax takes effect.

A tax fight that has been building

The pressure has come from several directions at once. Last week, two public petitions, one to repeal the tax and one to defer it two years, each cleared the 50,000 signatures that force a legislative review. Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok called for a “thorough final review,” a shift for a party that had held the line on 2027.

Finance Minister Lee Hyeong-il told a parliamentary audit Thursday the government would decide “after carefully considering and gathering all opinions from the industry and the National Assembly.” Financial Services Commission chairman Lee Eog-weon said the same day that the tax should “take various circumstances into full consideration.”

The Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect in July 2024, but the Digital Asset Basic Act, the licensing framework flagged alongside spot bitcoin ETF approval, has not passed. Lawmakers have questioned taxing a market before the law defining it exists.

The National Tax Service has not slowed down. It plans to publish a draft notice on taxable crypto income by the end of October. The government expects to settle its position through inter-agency talks after audits wrap, with a decision through National Assembly tax revisions between late November and early December.

This post South Korea Weighs Fourth Delay of Crypto Tax, With 2029 Start Tied to U.S. Data Sharing first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bank of Korea Wants Stablecoins Written Into Forex Law as Crypto Bill and Tax Fight Come to a Head

The Bank of Korea plans to draft an amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act with the government before year-end that would regulate stablecoins as a means of payment, according to a written submission to the National Assembly’s annual audit reported by Korean outlet Digital Asset.

The central bank’s October 22 report, a follow-up to last year’s audit, says it is consulting with the government on measures to regulate cross-border transactions in virtual assets. 

While building a monitoring system based on foreign exchange network reporting, the bank said, it plans to prepare the amendment with the government this year to regulate stablecoins as a means of payment, among other aims.

That is a plan to write a bill, not a bill in itself. There is no draft text, no named token and no passage date. And “means of payment” is a defined term in Korean forex law: an instrument whose cross-border movement must be reported. 

On that reading, the amendment would put dollar stablecoins under the same controls as a wire to New York, not make them legal tender at a Seoul convenience store.

The BOK pointed to settlement outside the banking system, mixers and regulatory gaps around personal wallets as factors that ease illegal transactions. Bitcoin holders who self-custody in Korea should take note: the country’s capital controls are the reason the kimchi premium exists, and a tighter forex net around crypto would entrench those controls rather than ease them.

The forex work runs in parallel with the Digital Asset Basic Act, the licensing and stablecoin-issuance framework flagged alongside spot bitcoin ETF approval in the government’s 2026 growth strategy. 

Financial Services Commission chairman Lee Eog-weon told lawmakers Thursday that consultations are in their final stage and the bill will follow as soon as possible, Bloomingbit reported. 

The BOK said it will work with ministries to limit transactions that exploit the gap until that law exists.

South Korea’s crypto tax discussions

The gap has a date attached. Korea’s crypto income tax is due to take effect January 1, 2027, according to The Block, after three postponements, and lawmakers have questioned taxing a market before the law defining it is passed. 

Lee said Thursday the tax should “take various circumstances into full consideration,” per Yonhap. Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok called Thursday for a “thorough final review,” a shift from a party that had insisted on 2027. 

Two petitions, one to repeal the tax and one to defer it two years, each cleared the 50,000 signatures that force a legislative review. 

The National Tax Service has not moved: it plans to finalize its draft tax notice by October 30, Digital Asset reported.

This post Bank of Korea Wants Stablecoins Written Into Forex Law as Crypto Bill and Tax Fight Come to a Head first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has opened two consultations to clarify how decentralized finance businesses will be regulated and which crypto activities could qualify for exemptions when the country’s new framework takes effect in October 2027. According to the FCA’s…

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockchain Association Presses Congress on Crypto Taxes as Clarity Act Stalls

The Blockchain Association sent a letter to Senate and House leadership on Thursday asking Congress to pass bipartisan digital asset tax legislation, the group’s first broad push on taxes since the Clarity Act failed in the Senate last month.

The letter, signed by Chief Policy Officer Lindsay Fraser and addressed to Majority Leader John Thune, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, argues that the rules governing the 67 million Americans who hold digital assets “were written for a different era.” 

The group paired it with a new site, TaxClarityforAmerica.com, built for constituents to contact their representatives.

The asks will sound familiar to anyone who has followed the tax fight: a de minimis exemption for small transactions, cash treatment for stablecoins, tax on mining and staking rewards at sale instead of receipt, broker reporting limited to firms that hold customer assets, and wash sale rules that close loss harvesting without catching everyday transactions. 

The letter adds a safe harbor for foreign traders on U.S. exchanges, a mark-to-market election, and R&D credit eligibility for blockchain development. What the letter leaves out is an endorsement. Two bills are somewhat in play, and the association named neither.

Where the tax bills stand

The House moved first. One day after the Clarity Act failed in the Senate, the Ways and Means Committee approved the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, a 114-page package from Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO). It exempts network fees under $10 from capital gains reporting, with a carve-out for taxpayers who made more than 5,000 transfers in the prior year, and extends wash sale and constructive sale rules to digital assets. Qualified dollar stablecoins are exempt from the wash sale rule.

The package left out the provision the industry wanted most. Rep. Mike Carey’s Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, H.R. 9175, which would have let miners and stakers defer tax until they sell, was in an early discussion draft and gone from the text the committee released on September 14. Instead the bill classifies validation rewards as ordinary income, taxable on receipt. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), who had proposed capping the deferral at five years, voted for the package and said it leaves the question open for further work.

The Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation and Digital Chamber had asked the committee in June to pass that bill without changes. The committee did the opposite.

The Senate has its own version. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the ADAPT Act on September 30 with Sens. Cynthia Lummis, Bernie Moreno and Tim Scott as cosponsors. It exempts purchases made with GENIUS Act stablecoins from gain or loss, sets the same $10 fee threshold, and applies wash sale rules with grandfathering for existing holdings and exemptions for mining and staking rewards. It sits in committee. 

Lummis’s earlier bill, S. 2207, with a $300 per-transaction de minimis exemption capped at $5,000 a year, has been in the Finance Committee since June 2025.

Neither chamber’s bill contains the exemption for small bitcoin purchases that the industry made a centerpiece at Bitcoin 2026. The House bill’s $10 threshold covers fees, not purchases. The Senate bill’s spending exemption covers stablecoins, not bitcoin. 

The Bitcoin Policy Institute and others have argued that any de minimis rule should cover bitcoin, and Thursday’s letter asks for a “meaningful” exemption without naming a figure.

Awkward timing

Congress is in recess until after the November 3 midterms. When members return, they will have a lame-duck session measured in weeks, and crypto taxes compete with government funding and whatever else leadership decides to clear before the 119th Congress ends. 

Lummis, the Senate’s loudest voice on digital asset taxes, retires in January 2027.

The Clarity Act’s collapse shapes all of this. The market structure bill passed the House 294-134 in July 2025, then stalled in the Senate for more than a year while the banking lobby fought the crypto industry over stablecoin yield and Democrats pressed for ethics language aimed at the Trump family’s crypto ventures. 

The cloture vote on September 15 failed 49-50. No Democrat crossed over, and Republicans Susan Collins, Josh Hawley and Jerry Moran voted no. Sen. Thom Tillis switched his vote so he could file a motion to reconsider, which keeps the bill alive on paper and little more.

With market structure off the table, the industry has shifted its lobbying to what might move. Tax is the obvious candidate: the House package cleared committee with bipartisan votes, and the wash sale provisions raise revenue, which gives tax writers a reason to attach them to a larger vehicle. Punchbowl News reported Thursday that the association’s refusal to back either bill signals the industry wants more than what Congress has produced.

Regulators keep filling the gap in the meantime. The OCC issued its final GENIUS Act rule on Wednesday, and the SEC and CFTC have been setting market structure policy through rulemaking and enforcement in the absence of a statute.

This post Blockchain Association Presses Congress on Crypto Taxes as Clarity Act Stalls first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

More than 730 cyber breaches affected over 270 million Americans last year, costing an average of $10 million per breach.

The post Senate Passes Bipartisan Bill to Strengthen Healthcare Cybersecurity appeared first on SecurityWeek.