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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.

South Korea is considering delaying its 22% crypto gains tax until 2029, citing overseas trading data gaps and concerns about taxing domestic investors.

South Korea is approaching another decision point on its long-delayed cryptocurrency gains tax, with exchanges and policymakers preparing to discuss whether the January 2027 start date is realistic.

TL;DR: The country’s planned crypto tax has already been deferred three times. A new proposal would push implementation toward 2029, but no additional delay has been enacted.

Finance officials are expected to meet representatives of major domestic exchanges on October 20. The industry is arguing that the systems needed to handle different transaction types and calculate cost bases are still incomplete. A rushed launch, exchanges say, risks creating inconsistent tax treatment or driving activity to offshore platforms.

South Korea’s planned rate is commonly described as 22% after local tax is included, rather than a simple 20% all-in charge. The question now is less about whether crypto gains should ever be taxable than whether the supporting reporting infrastructure is ready for millions of transactions across different venues.

A lawmaker’s proposal would link the effective date to cross-border data sharing through the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, potentially moving the start to 2029. That measure requires legislative action; a meeting with exchanges cannot, by itself, change the law.

For investors, the current scheduled date remains January 2027 unless lawmakers decide otherwise. For exchanges, a later timetable could buy time to build reporting systems, but another postponement would also prolong policy uncertainty. South Korea has reached this crossroads before, which is why a proposed delay should not be reported as a settled outcome.

Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

Latvia has passed a change to the way crypto investment-account gains are taxed, shifting attention from individual trades to what an investor ultimately withdraws from an eligible account.

TL;DR: New Latvian legislation taxes qualifying account withdrawals above deposits and provides a one-time 2027 process for declaring older holdings. The country is also considering crypto tax payments, but that payment service is not yet established.

The reform passed parliament on October 15. Under the investment-account approach described in reporting on the law, moving between crypto assets inside the account no longer automatically creates the same tax event as withdrawing more value than the amount contributed. Investors will still need records that establish their deposits and withdrawals.

There is also an attempt to resolve a practical problem for people who bought digital assets years ago and cannot reconstruct their original cost basis. A declaration mechanism would let eligible holders regularize historical positions at a 10% charge based on their value at the end of 2026. Applications are scheduled for April 1 through May 31, 2027, with payment due by July 23.

The proposed ability to pay taxes with cryptocurrency is a separate issue. Officials have discussed it as a potential step for 2027, but the currencies, provider and operational arrangements have not been announced. It should not be confused with the tax law parliament has already adopted.

For the wider EU market, Latvia’s move illustrates how governments are adapting old tax concepts to assets that can be exchanged continuously. The details of account eligibility and recordkeeping will decide how helpful the change is in practice.

Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.