Korean tax academics urge delay of crypto tax, citing flaws

With South Korea's virtual asset tax set to take effect next year, academics have raised concerns about the system's flaws, Money Today reported. The main argument is that both the justification and the means for taxation are insufficient, which could lead to taxpayer resistance. Oh Moon-seong, president of the Korean Tax Policy Association, said at an emergency review seminar on virtual asset taxation today that "the consistency of the taxation needs to be re-examined" and that "it is still too early." The event was hosted by People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-young and the association. Oh explained that it would violate tax fairness to proceed with taxing virtual assets, as the same arguments used to abolish the financial investment income tax in December 2024—such as potential market contraction, inadequate infrastructure, and double taxation—apply equally to crypto. He also pointed out that the technical infrastructure for identifying tax obligations is lacking. While domestic centralized exchanges (CEX) like Upbit and Bithumb can submit data to tax authorities, gaps remain for overseas CEXs, decentralized exchanges (DEX), and decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.