Tax rules must first be set for each type of cryptocurrency transaction, including staking and airdrops, before taxation begins, industry professionals said. Returns in the coin market now come from a variety of activities beyond simple trading, yet it remains unclear when and on what basis taxes should be levied.
In an urgent survey of 30 people — including digital asset industry officials, academics and legal experts — conducted by The Seoul Economic Daily and released on the 18th, 80% cited the establishment of tax rules for each transaction type, such as staking, airdrops and decentralized finance (DeFi), as a task requiring improvement before cryptocurrency taxation takes effect. The question allowed multiple responses. Another 76.7% pointed to the need to overhaul rules for calculating acquisition costs and gains or losses, underscoring the view that the definitions of taxable assets and actual taxable income must be clarified first.
Staking refers to putting held cryptocurrency to work in the operation and validation of a blockchain network in return for rewards. Tax calculations can differ depending on whether the reward tokens are recognized as income immediately or taxed only when later disposed of. Airdrops, in which a project distributes coins to users free of charge, raise similar questions over whether the tokens count as income when received and how their value should be assessed.
The absence of loss carryforward deductions is also contentious. Among respondents, 66.7% cited the introduction of such deductions as a key task. Under the current system, an investor who posted heavy losses in one year must still pay taxes on profits in the following year, even if those gains only partly offset the earlier losses. An official at a digital asset analytics firm said the system should first be improved so that it does not place an excessive burden on individuals to document their own transaction records.