South Korea approves delaying crypto tax rule to January 2022

South Korea will enforce a 20% tax on gains from crypto trading activities that exceed a $2,000 threshold starting from January 2022.

The Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday that the South Korean National Assembly held a meeting on November 30 where the legislative body decided to move ahead with the government's tax amendment plan.

Part of the plan seeks to put a 20% tax on capital gains from crypto trading activities that exceed a threshold of 2.5 million Korean won, or about $2,000.

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For instance, if a local resident makes a total of 5 million won by buying selling bitcoin for a year, they will pay 500,000 won for the gains that are above the 2.5 million won baseline, the report added. And no income tax will be charged if the total gains in a year are less than 2.5 million won.

South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance finalized the tax amendment plan in July, which initially sought to implement the 20% tax on crypto trading gains in October 2021.

However, the National Assembly proposed last week to delay the implementation time by three months to January 2022 due to concerns raised by local industry players for not having enough time to build a proper tax reporting infrastructure.

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Wolfie joined The Block’s news team in 2020 and switched to the research side in 2021 to focus on crypto mining analysis. Prior to The Block, he had been a journalist at CoinDesk for three years. Wolfie has a background in financial journalism.