A bill to effectively delay taxation on digital asset income, scheduled for January next year, to 2029 is also being pushed by the ruling party.

On Oct. 15, the National Assembly and the digital asset industry said Democratic Party lawmaker Park Min-kyu (박민규) will sponsor an amendment to the income tax law to adjust the start date for taxing digital asset income. It is the first time the ruling party has moved to introduce a bill to delay digital asset taxation.

The amendment would change the implementation date to Jan. 1 two years after the year in which digital asset transaction information is first exchanged between countries.

Given that cross-border exchange of transaction information under the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF, is set to begin in 2027, the taxation start would effectively be delayed to 2029.

The amendment said implementing the system when transaction information and tax infrastructure are still insufficient could weaken the effectiveness of taxation and reduce predictability for taxpayers.

It pointed in particular to tax fairness between users of domestic exchanges and users of overseas exchanges. It said domestic exchanges make it relatively easier to secure tax data, but there are limits to obtaining transaction information through overseas exchanges until CARF is fully operational.

The amendment's purpose is that taxation could be concentrated on users of domestic exchanges, creating fairness problems between users of domestic and overseas exchanges. It also cited the fact that the United States is scheduled to join CARF in 2029 as grounds for adjusting the taxation timing.

It is also argued that enactment of a basic digital asset law should be linked to the taxation start date. Park's side said it is necessary to establish the basic institutional framework for the digital asset market before implementing taxation.

Park said last month it is premature to implement taxation first when a basic digital asset law has not been 마련. At the time, he also pointed out that if domestic taxation begins before CARF is in operation, it could work relatively against users of domestic exchanges.

In the opposition camp, bills centered on abolishing or delaying taxation have already been introduced. In the People Power Party, lawmaker Song Eon-seok proposed a bill to delete provisions on taxing digital asset income, and lawmakers including Kim Sang-hoon and Jung Sung-kook separately proposed income tax law amendments to delay the start date. Lawmaker Kim Jae-seop also proposed an amendment to delay the taxation date by three years to Jan. 1, 2030.

The government, meanwhile, is continuing working-level preparations on the premise of implementing taxation under current law. The National Tax Service is discussing building a taxation system with exchanges and is also preparing a public notice containing standards for digital asset taxation.

As bills to delay implementation continue to emerge from both the ruling and opposition parties, future discussions are expected to focus less on whether to tax and more on when to consider the timing for securing overseas transaction information and building tax infrastructure, and in what order to proceed with enactment of the basic digital asset law and taxation.