SOUTH KOREA: REPORTS OF 10% TAX ON CRYPTOCURRENCY GAINS ARE FAKE

South Korea’s Ministry of Finance has denied reports of 10% income tax on cryptocurrency investments.

10% TAX ON CRYPTO GRAINS IS FAKE NEWS
Taxation has been a hot topic in the cryptocurrency world this year. Governments want their piece of the pie and traders are anxious to know how badly their tax collectors plan to gouge them.

Luckily, many governments have already announced their stances on the matter. Some have chosen complete leniency—as with Thailand who waived taxes on cryptocurrency gains altogether—but others have taken cruel action to deter investors as with the United States who imposed a capital gains tax on every single microtransaction One nation that has remained relatively quiet on the matter is South Korea and that has led to a lot of speculation from Korean crypto enthusiasts.

Recently, reports have been circulating, stemming from an article in Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, of an unidentified high-ranking official from South Korea’s ministry of finance purportedly divulging plans of an imminent ten percent tax on all cryptocurrency trades:

We have already decided to tax profits from investments in cryptocurrency. The question is only how much time we should give investors and when to start implementing it.

The article goes on to say that the government will allow up to a 2- year grace period before the tax code will come into effect.

It turns out, however, that this was all merely conjecture as the ministry of finance is now denying the legitimacy of this report, stating that it “is different from the fact.”

The credibility of the Chosun Ilbo article was fostered by reports earlier in the year that Korea planned to implement their cryptocurrency tax framework sometime in June of 2018.

Crypto enthusiasts of South Korea were hopeful of the authenticity of the report since it posed a fair compromise between investors and regulators. Unfortunately, it seems that it will be a while longer before any official statement on the tax structure is made by the Korean government, which has classified Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as an asset.