The South Korean Tax Authority seizes $184 million in crypto that belonged to tax evaders

The South Korean Tax Authority has reportedly seized 260 billion won (around $184.3 million) in cryptocurrency that belonged to tax evaders, local news site Yonhap News said on Thursday. However, the organization put a freeze on that sum from 2021 to 2022.

According to information provided by Kin Sang Hoon, a member of the country’s parliament, the greatest sum ever seized from a single tax evader was $8.87 million.

He claimed that the defendant owned cryptocurrency assets such as Ripple’s XRP and Bitcoin.

It’s important to note that South Korea‘s implied rule requires cryptocurrency exchanges to give tax authorities information about their users.

Similar to this, the agency has been going after tax evaders since the start of this year and has seized millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency.

After the exchanges discover tax evaders on their platforms, the tax department freezes their crypto assets. If the tax balance is not paid, officials sell the confiscated assets at market value.

Two months after the South Korean government declared that the decision to impose a 20% tax on cryptocurrency revenues had been delayed until 2025, a report on the confiscation of cryptocurrency assets due to unpaid tax was released.

Right-wing People Power Party politician Kim Sang-hoon, a member of the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee, acquired information regarding the seizures of cryptocurrency holdings.