South Korea is weighing yet another delay to its planned cryptocurrency income tax, which is currently set to take effect on January 1, as per local news media reports.
According to the report, the tax could be pushed all the way to 2029, largely because that’s the earliest point at which officials expect to be able to exchange tax-related data on digital asset transactions with the United States. This would mark the fourth postponement for a tax that has already been delayed three times before, and officials are increasingly leaning toward another push-back as they weigh arguments that the country’s legal and administrative systems aren’t fully equipped to handle enforcement yet.
The timing mismatch traces back to international data-sharing commitments. South Korea sits among the first group of jurisdictions scheduled to begin exchanging crypto transaction data in 2027 under the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). The United States, however, isn’t set to join that data exchange until 2029,as per the report, which cited the CARF timeline as a central factor behind the proposed delay.
The missing US trading data represents the single biggest obstacle to the move. Without access to that information, South Korea’s National Tax Service would be forced to track down overseas transactions on a case-by-case basis, leaving Korean traders who use domestic exchanges at a disadvantage compared to those trading on foreign platforms or holding assets in self-custody, where enforcement is harder to reach.
Under the current tax rules, South Korea applies a combined 22% rate to qualifying crypto income above an annual threshold of 2.5 million won, made up of a 20% national income tax and a 2% local income tax.
