[Digital Today, reporter Oh Sang-yup] South Korea’s People Power Party is strongly pushing to abolish income tax on digital asset investors, stepping up market-friendly policy moves. It says institutional backing is urgently needed to grow the market and protect investors rather than impose excessive regulation, with most of the roughly 13 million users being young people.

On March 25, party leaders including floor leader Song Eon-seok (송언석), Policy Committee chairman Jeong Jeom-sik (정점식) and lawmaker Kim Eun-hye (김은혜) held an on-site meeting on improving the digital asset taxation system at Coinone’s headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul.

Song, who personally introduced a bill to abolish digital asset income tax, pointed out that the current virtual asset taxation system is quite unreasonable. He said he would listen closely to the industry and actively reflect its views in policy, and do his best to pass the bill to abolish the income tax to substantially ease investors’ burdens.

Jeong also said the meeting was meant to hear about the difficulties faced by industry officials and consider how to connect them to policy and legislation, rather than to deliver the party’s position. He promised that if participants offered frank opinions, he would incorporate them into the party’s official policy.

Kim criticised what she called the government’s one-sided regulatory policy, comparing it to a fishbowl. She said when a fish grows, the bowl should be replaced with a bigger one, but the government is keeping the bowl as it is and only telling people to cut off the fish’s fins and tail. She stressed that young people investing in the virtual asset market are clearly taxpayers and investors who should be protected.

She added that tax reform should be considered in terms of market growth and preventing disadvantages to investors, rather than in terms of securing tax revenue.

The party leadership plans to build a specific legislative roadmap based on the operational realities at exchanges and industry requests raised at the meeting.

It also plans to focus all efforts on improving systems to create a sound investment environment, along with tax benefits, so that young investors are not treated unfairly in the market.

The industry hopes the opposition party’s move will inject vitality into a stagnant digital asset market and become a turning point for securing global competitiveness. The People Power Party plans to review the collected opinions and actively push for related bills, including abolishing digital asset income tax, to pass the National Assembly.