South Korea to Delay Cryptocurrency Taxation Laws: Report

The ruling Democratic Party of South Korea intends to delay the upcoming taxation policy of digital assets. According to the officials, taxing bitcoin and altcoin investors still lacks proper infrastructure.

Delaying The Crypto Taxation

The Democratic Party of South Korea has objections in regards to the upcoming law that plans to start taxing gains made from cryptocurrency investments. According to a recent report, they have even passed a bill that could suspend the legislation, which should have gone into effect at the start of 2022.

The 64-year-old member of the ruling Democratic Party – Noh Woong-rae – opined that the Asian country does not have a well-designed plan to implement the taxing procedure. As such, delaying the initiative seems “inevitable:”

“In a situation where the relevant taxation infrastructure is not sufficiently prepared, the deferral of taxation on virtual assets is no longer an option but an inevitable situation.”

Woong-rae added that the Ministry of Finance’s policy of enforcing taxation over digital asset endeavors wouldn’t work as planned. He explained that it is difficult to secure the proper taxing of overseas operations with cryptocurrencies or peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions.

With that said, the politician asserted that the Democratic Party would attempt to settle the issue bringing it up to the highest governing body of the nation – the National Assembly:

“As the relevant laws for tax deferral and real tax cuts are currently pending in the standing committee, we will actively persuade fellow lawmakers so that they can be dealt with in the regular National Assembly.”

South Korea’s Finance Minister – Hong Nam-Ki – seemed determined to impose the new taxation law from the beginning of 2022. Earlier this year, he predicted that this move is a matter of when not if.

“It’s inevitable; we will need to impose taxes on gains from trading of virtual assets.”

Most Koreans Actually Approve The Crypto Taxation

While the country’s authorities have their doubts about the upcoming taxation of cryptocurrency assets, it is not the case with the majority of the Korean population.

According to a recent report, nearly 54% of them approve South Korea’s plans to slam 20% tax on gains made from digital asset trading, and only 38.3% were against it. Breaking the results into generations, older locals were significantly more open to the idea, while nearly half of those aged between 20 and 29 opposed the incoming law. Interestingly, female Koreans were more supportive of the taxation rules than men.