South Korea to tax capital gains on Crypto
The South Korean government plans to tax capital gains on cryptocurrency. According to the local news outlet- The Korea Times, the Ministry of Economy and Finance is pushing for the crypto tax bill to be implemented by next year.
“Related discussions have been taking place. The [new] bill will be drawn up by the first half of next year”, Ministry official told the news outlet.
The report also outlines that the government will levy capital gains tax on cryptocurrencies regardless of the bill’s passage anyway. However for that to happen, a clear definition of cryptocurrencies and digital assets is required.
Among the matters to be clarified is if the gains from the cryptocurrencies should be deemed similar to gains coming from stock trading or real estate transactions. Once the bill gets implemented, crypto exchanges would require to retain a trading record of each trader and provide it to the authorities.
Meanwhile, the government has implemented tighter KYC and AML requirements for crypto exchanges in South Korea in the wake to better combat money laundering. Under the new guideline, banks are to issue only real-name accounts to crypto exchanges.
