South Korea weighs a fourth delay to its 22% crypto tax as five exchanges meet officials on Tuesday and a bill would push it to 2029

South Korea may push back its crypto tax for a fourth time. Officials from the finance ministry and the Financial Services Commission are due to meet the country's five main exchanges, Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, DigitalX and Gopax, along with executives of the Digital Asset Exchange Alliance, on Tuesday, October 20, according to a Yonhap report cited by Cointelegraph and crypto.news. Kwon Dae-young, first vice minister of finance and economy, and Yoo Young-jun, director general for digital financial policy at the Financial Services Commission, are expected to attend.

The tax, first legislated in 2020, would charge 20% national income tax plus local tax, a combined 22%, on income from crypto transfers and lending above an annual deduction of 2.5 million won, per crypto.news. It is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027, after three delays.

On Friday, October 16, Democratic Party lawmaker Park Min-gyu introduced a bill with 14 sponsors that would set the start date at January 1 of the second year after South Korea first exchanges transaction data under the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. With the first exchange expected in 2027, that would move the tax to 2029. An exchange official told Yonhap that "time is running short for practical preparations on the infrastructure side," per Cointelegraph, and that the industry broadly favors a delay.

Open questions include how staking, airdrops and DeFi income would be taxed, how coins held in private wallets or on foreign platforms would be tracked, and the absence of loss carryforwards, per crypto.news. The bill has only been introduced; what to watch is whether the government backs it after Tuesday's meeting.