Min Byeong-deok Urges Delaying South Korea's 2027 Bitcoin (BTC) Tax Until Basic Act Passes

Basic Act Before Tax

South Korea's landmark digital asset tax, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027, now faces a serious challenge from inside the ruling party. Min Byeong-deok, senior deputy chair of the policy committee of the Democratic Party of Korea, argued in a Facebook post published on Monday, September 22, that the levy should begin only after the Digital Asset Basic Act — a market-wide framework bill he personally sponsored last year — has been passed. Min accepts the taxation principle outright: “Where there is income, there is tax,” he wrote, adding that digital assets “cannot be an exception.” What he disputes is readiness. Seoul, in his assessment, has not yet built the machinery to collect the tax fairly. His first concern is the cross-border information gap. Under the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF — the international standard for automatic exchange of crypto transaction data between tax authorities — the first exchange of data with partner jurisdictions is set for 2027. If taxation starts that same January, income earned on domestic exchanges would be visible while offshore gains remain invisible. “In effect,” he argued, “only those who traded diligently at home would pay tax.” He warned the imbalance could push investors toward overseas venues, shrinking not only the digital asset tax base but also corporate tax paid by domestic operators and value-added tax on trading fees. Such a migration would reward unlicensed offshore platforms at the expense of regulated Korean businesses. The opposition People Power Party has, for its own infrastructure concerns, already come out against the 2027 start, so resistance now spans both major parties. Scope compounds timing: the Basic Act covers every virtual asset, from Bitcoin to meme coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE), and would first define the legal status of staking, lending, airdrops and hard forks, alongside operator obligations and user protections — the regulatory skeleton Min says must exist before any tax is collected on income from the broader blockchain economy.

Losses Ignored, Gains Taxed

Min's second set of objections targets the levy's design rather than its existence. Under the current framework, income from transferring or lending virtual assets is taxed at 20% on annual gains above 2.5 million won, or a combined 22% once local income tax is included; the first filings for 2027 income fall in the May 2028 comprehensive income tax season. What the rules lack, he argued, is any loss carryforward — losses in one tax year cannot offset gains in the next. He illustrated the distortion with a worked example: an investor who loses 10 million won in year one and earns 10 million won the following year nets zero across the two years, yet would owe 1.65 million won in tax under the current system. The United States and the United Kingdom apply capital-gains rules that permit loss carryforward, he noted, and he urged Seoul to introduce a minimum five-year window. A third gap concerns cost basis. The standards for calculating acquisition prices are delegated to a presidential decree that has not yet been issued, and Min warned that unclear rules could leave investors paying more than they actually owe or carrying the blame for filing errors. His final demand is transparency: the government should publish expected revenue alongside administrative and compliance costs before launch, pointing to the UK, which discloses projected receipts, transition spending and business burdens for its own CARF adoption together. He also pressed the National Assembly and the government to attach completion deadlines and verification standards to each preparatory task, so that a delay cannot become an indefinite deferral. Framing his position, he said the goal is “not to avoid tax, but to collect it properly,” pledging tighter crackdowns on unfair trading and stronger investor protection during any preparation period. The government, however, is holding its ground. Officials have maintained that taxation will proceed as planned on January 1, 2027, leaving the sequencing dispute open. The Basic Act debate also ties into earlier Seoul policy work on won-pegged stablecoin issuance — and, more broadly, the ongoing global discussion over central bank digital currency (CBDC) infrastructure. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

January 2027 in Question

For COINOTAG, the primary record in this story is Min's own Facebook statement: the post lays out in concrete detail the three missing foundations — cross-border data exchange, loss carryforward and a cost-basis decree — and pins any delay to the Basic Act he sponsored. Our read is that this is a sequencing fight, not an anti-tax one, and the government's fixed statutory date collides with a framework bill that has yet to clear the Assembly. With both major parties now questioning the start date and officials refusing to move it, the next few legislative months will determine whether Korea's digital asset rules launch half-built — and whether domestic trading volume stays onshore or drifts offshore once the levy bites.