Virtual asset taxation, introduced in 2020 but never implemented, has once again reached a critical juncture. While the People Power Party has proposed both a repeal bill to abolish the tax entirely and a postponement bill to delay implementation by three more years, the government and key Democratic Party lawmakers are leaning toward enforcing it as scheduled in January next year. The Democratic Party has a history of insisting on implementation before ultimately opting for delays at the last minute, making future parliamentary discussions a key variable.
According to the National Assembly on the 11th, the People Power Party recently presented two alternative solutions for virtual asset taxation: postponing the implementation date and repealing the tax. The previous day, Rep. Jeong Seong-guk proposed an amendment to delay the tax implementation from January 2027 to January 2030. Earlier this year, Rep. Song Eun-seok proposed a revision to the Income Tax Act to abolish virtual asset taxation, arguing that it is unfair to impose taxes solely on virtual assets while financial investment income taxes have been abolished.
In contrast, the government maintains its stance to proceed as planned. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Koo Yoon-cheol reaffirmed the government's plan to implement virtual asset income taxation from next year during a parliamentary session last month. Despite criticisms that the current tax system lacks provisions for loss carryforwards, the government intends to implement the system first and then make necessary adjustments.
The Democratic Party has so far emphasized implementing the tax. Rep. Oh Ki-hyung, the party's chief negotiator on the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee, stated that the party's basic position is to proceed with taxation as scheduled. Rep. Ahn Do-gil also confirmed that there has been no change in the plan to implement taxation next year.
However, whether the Democratic Party will maintain this stance until the end of the year remains uncertain. Virtual asset taxation has been postponed three times, with political positions shifting just before implementation. Notably, in 2024, the Democratic Party initially insisted on raising the basic deduction while proceeding with taxation as scheduled but accepted the government and ruling party's proposal to postpone it by two years just one month before implementation. Consequently, the tax implementation was pushed back from 2025 to 2027.
Regardless of political decisions, the National Tax Service has continued preparations under the assumption of implementation. The agency has consistently allocated budgets for related systems. In 2021, when preparing for the first taxation, it budgeted 475.36 million won for developing a virtual asset management system. In 2024, it allocated 347 million won for a virtual asset integrated analysis system, and 148 million won was included in the government's 2025 budget proposal.
This year, ahead of next year's taxation, the investment scale has expanded. The National Tax Service proceeded with a bid and issued a contract for a 2.99811 billion won project to build a “virtual asset integrated analysis system.” The system will integrate transaction data submitted by exchanges with blockchain information to analyze taxpayers' transaction histories and fund flows, tracking tax evasion and irregular transactions.
If virtual asset taxation is postponed or abolished again, controversies over related infrastructure and additional administrative costs are inevitable. Although the implementation date has been delayed three times—from 2022 to 2023, 2025, and again to 2027—the tax authority's preparation costs have continued to accrue.
An industry insider said, “Since the current law stipulates taxation next year, the National Tax Service has no choice but to continue preparations. The problem is that the implementation date could change again depending on political decisions.”
