South Korea's national tax authority, responsible for tax collection, business registration data, and setting rules such as crypto taxation.
South Korea's finance ministry opposed a bill to regulate tax platforms that filed 59% of 2025 refund claims. The tax service requested it after platform traffic knocked Hometax offline in May last year, and a subcommittee has held it over.
Reality
Lim Kwang-hyun, named chief of staff on the 14th, sponsored a 2024 bill taking minimum inheritance deductions to 1.8 billion won from 1 billion. The reporting shows his view but no government proposal to raise the deductions.
Reality
Korea's tax on domestically produced alcohol fell 4.5% to 2.4352 trillion won in 2025, a six-year low, National Tax Service data show. Beer and diluted soju explain nearly all of the two-year drop, but four years of falling retail sales cloud the youth-drinking story.
Reality
South Korea's tax service expects to publish crypto guidance in November, before a 22% tax on gains above 2.5 million won starts on January 1, 2027. Staking, airdrops, hard forks and DeFi are still under review, so exchanges are building against rules not yet written.
Reality
South Korea's Supreme Court let stand a ruling cancelling about 154 billion won in taxes on Google Korea over payments to its Singapore affiliate. The tax office lost its royalty theory in two courts, and the only reasoning on record is the lower courts'.
Reality
Korean business owners aged 60 or older rose by 184,226 in the year to August, more than the country's 133,382 net gain in all operators, tax data show. Every age group under 60 shrank, so the count now rests on people past retirement age, many of them working because their pensions fall short.
Reality
Korea's tax arrears under collection rose 2.5-fold to 24.1 trillion won between 2020 and June, National Tax Service data show. The number of people owing grew far more slowly, so most of the increase comes from bigger unpaid balances per debtor.
Reality
Kwon Hyuk, the Sido Group chairman known as Korea's shipping king, has agreed to pay about 400 billion won in back taxes he avoided for 15 years. The National Tax Service is holding the deal up as an example to the 12 people ranked behind him on its delinquent list, who owed about 1.95 trillion won combined when named.
Reality
South Korea had 19,507 beer pubs in August, 8.9% fewer than a year earlier, National Tax Service data show. Makers earned about 1.7% more per litre last year as shipments hit a 27-year low, so Koreans' retreat from drinking is costing venues more than brewers.
Reality
Korea's finance ministry proposed licensing crypto moves between Korean exchanges and overseas providers or private wallets, with a two-person staffing floor. Registration is cheap, so the cost to operators lies in filing transfer records for state investigators.
Reality
Korea's registered social-media sellers reported 33.31 billion won of business income in 2024, more than 18 times the 2020 figure. The tax agency says it has limited means to check those sales, so the total counts only what sellers chose to declare.
Reality
Lee Hyoung-il told the National Assembly that virtual assets belong in the other-income category and that the National Tax Service will publish the operative rules by the end of this year, while capital gains taxation of securities waits for calmer markets.
Reality
A petition for a two-year delay reached the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee with 51,004 names, and the finance minister nominee has told the committee that starting the 22% levy in January 2027 is desirable.
Reality
Korea's business registry sits behind a Korean-language portal and SMS verification, so an agent cannot reach it. One developer put it behind an HTTP 402 and $0.02 in USDC, then found his free tier had disqualified him from the marketplace.
Reality
The 2021 exemption for jointly titled single-home owners saves one 63-year-old couple 248,000 won and would cost a 49-year-old couple 5.28 million, so the National Tax Service will now calculate it and refund past overpayers.
Reality
National Tax Service data obtained by Rep. Moon Jin-seok puts 1,606 South Korean minors, five of them aged 1, above the 20 million won filing trigger for 2024. His stated remedy is tighter tax-office follow-up on gifts made in children's names.
Reality
The National Tax Service says its review found about 5,700 taxpayers who should apply for the joint-owner option and about 2,900 who should cancel it, and it will bill each of them at the cheaper figure in November.
Reality
The August 28 ruling keeps a bankrupt exchange's account on the annual filing even when the holder cannot withdraw, and with the 500 million won floor unchanged and acquisition-cost rules unpublished, the documentary burden sits with the filer.
Reality
The National Tax Service says one Korean manufacturer has waited since May 2023 for a fully documented withholding tax refund, and it wants Bangkok to count its investment incentives as taxes paid before the 15% floor eats them.
Reality
The National Tax Service screened 2,639 company-owned luxury homes and found 1,097 in owner-family use. Only 50 firms are in phase one, and the average alleged loss is about 38 billion won each.
Reality