The issue of taxation of crypto investments in South Korea remains open

South Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance has denied reports that recently appeared in some local media about the government's plans to tax cryptocurrency profits at a rate of 10%.

On June 22, local online publication Chosun, citing a certain “high-ranking government official,” claimed that the government was preparing to tax cryptocurrency profits at a 10 percent rate, regardless of the size of the investment.

“We have already decided to tax profits received from cryptocurrency investments,” the publication quoted the official. “The question now is how much time to prepare to give investors and when to introduce this tax.”

The government decided to classify these profits as “other income,” the article stated, which suggested that the government does not consider cryptocurrencies as financial or investment products.

Despite this, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance - the government agency overseeing financial policy - denied all information in the report, and stated that “the article is extremely far from truth.”

The Business Korea report further stated that even if the government decides to take such a step, the likelihood that “preparing for the introduction of such a tax” will take a significant amount of time is extremely high.

Although the government's previous tax plan was supposed to be released in June, the tax department of the Ministry of Information and Communications has postponed the review of tax laws to August this year. The South Korean government devotes a lot of time to studying tax structures in different countries, such as Japan, Germany, the United States.

The Thai tax authority recently waived the 7% value added tax (VAT) for individual crypto traders in order to reduce the tax burden, since they already have to pay a 15% tax on profits from crypto investments.

According to ccn.com