South Korea Tax Agency Speeds Crypto Tax Preparations for 2028 Filings

South Korea’s National Tax Service is stepping up preparations to implement taxation on digital-asset income from January next year as debate over the levy continues.

Edaily reported on April 29 that the agency is building related systems and tax infrastructure to ensure taxpayers can file without disruption when comprehensive income tax returns are submitted in May 2028.

“The law is now in place to tax virtual-asset income generated from next year, so we are preparing to receive filings starting with the 2028 comprehensive income tax return,” Park Jeong-yeol, commissioner general for individual taxpayer services at the National Tax Service, said at a briefing on April 29.

Under the current Income Tax Act, income from transfers and lending of virtual assets generated from Jan. 1, 2027, will be classified as miscellaneous income. Annual gains above 2.5 million won ($1,740) will be taxed at 22%.

To build the tax base, the National Tax Service plans to establish a system to receive transaction data from major crypto exchanges. It will work with domestic platforms including Dunamu’s Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax to secure data and set taxation standards.

The agency is also holding technical talks on linking data between Hometax, its online tax filing service, and exchanges. It plans to specify standards for calculating capital gains that reflect the characteristics of virtual assets.

The National Tax Service is also moving ahead with infrastructure work. It is pursuing a project to build an integrated virtual asset analysis system, with a pilot planned this year before a formal launch. The agency also plans to develop information-sharing functions based on the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF, the international standard for automatic exchange of crypto-asset information.