Kim Min-seok Makes First Public Stance on Korea's 22% Digital Asset Tax

First Leader-Level Word on the Tax

Ruling Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok broke his silence on Wednesday, October 21, posting on X that he is taking in a range of views on digital asset taxation and that the National Assembly and the government will seek a reasonable solution after reviewing institutional readiness, the voices of young investors and practical conditions on the ground. The post is his first official statement on the levy since he took the party's top post in September, and it stops short of saying whether he supports the two-year deferral now being pressed inside his own camp. The tax itself is already written law: the Income Tax Act schedules taxation of digital asset gains to begin on January 1, 2027, applying 22%, local income tax included, to annual profits above the 2.5 million won basic deduction. The filing we are looking at binds individual investors, and critics inside the assembly say the machinery around it is unfinished. They point to unclear acquisition-cost rules, the difficulty of securing trade records from offshore venues, many of them among the best crypto exchanges globally, the absence of a loss carryforward and the short runway domestic trading platforms have to build and verify tax systems. Opposition pressure mounted the same day: People Power Party policy vice chair Park Su-young joined young investors at the National Assembly communications office to demand the Democratic Party adopt a deferral position, arguing that a tax that is unprepared and inequitable is better postponed. The investors, armed with a national petition that gathered about 54,000 signatures, asked for a two-year delay; their representative, Jo Sang-hyeok, said the point is not to reject taxation but to complete the groundwork for fair and accurate payment first, listing loss carryforward and overseas data access as prerequisites.

Deferral Bills Split the Ruling Party

That record made Wednesday's post notable: Kim had never spoken at leader level on the tax, even after the People Power Party introduced an abolition bill in March and campaigned against the levy. His own camp is split across at least three positions. Park Min-kyu and 13 fellow Democratic lawmakers filed an Income Tax Act amendment on October 16 that would push implementation from 2027 to two years after the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, the OECD-led cross-border data-sharing regime known as CARF, takes effect, a shift that would also let Korean authorities receive data on assets held abroad, closing the very gap critics cite. Under the filed text, the levy would not start on a fixed date but wait for an international standard that is still rolling out. Min Byung-deok, the party's senior deputy policy chair, said on a YouTube channel on October 14 that taxing digital assets now would kill the domestic market. Jung Tae-ho argued the opposite on October 13, saying three deferrals already give the state sufficient justification to proceed. The opposition is firmly against the levy as drafted: its deferral and abolition bills are filed, and its official line calls the tax premature. Park Su-young told reporters after the press conference that both sides' committee secretaries would attempt talks but the result is hard to predict, because the Democratic Party has not yet settled its position into an official line. The decision now rests with the tax subcommittee under the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee, the body that reviews all tax legislation, which begins work in November.

Enacted Law Versus Pending Bills

As we read the two tracks side by side, the operative distinction is between enacted law and pending proposals. The 22% rate, the 2.5 million won deduction and the January 1, 2027 start stand in the statute today and bind investors whose annual gains clear the threshold; the CARF-linked delay and the abolition bill are amendments that must clear the subcommittee and pass the full assembly. Kim's refusal to name a position keeps his party's line open, and with a 14-name delay bloc, an outright opponent and an implementation advocate all inside one caucus, the leadership's silence is the only stable fact this week. The November subcommittee is where Korea's fourth review of the levy will be decided.