Korea Tax Tribunal: Gift tax on Bitcoin transferred through a spouse's account must be re-investigated

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Crypto Mars News: On June 24th, the Korean Tax Tribunal recently made a re-investigation ruling on a dispute over Bitcoin gift tax.
The case involves the issue of whether transferring Bitcoin through a spouse's overseas exchange account constitutes a gift, sparking widespread attention in the crypto asset tax community.
The facts show that taxpayer A, who stored 67 Bitcoins in a personal hardware cold wallet (Ledger), was unable to transfer directly to a domestic exchange due to Korea's Travel Rule regulations, so he used his spouse B's overseas exchange account as an intermediary.
The entire process took only 2 to 8 minutes, after which the Bitcoin was sold to purchase property.
The tax authorities determined that this act constituted a gift between spouses and levied gift tax on A.
A filed an appeal, claiming that the Bitcoin was his personal asset held since before 2014, and submitted a memorandum of understanding with his spouse—where it was agreed that if Bitcoin appreciated, they would buy property, and that 13 Bitcoins were gifted to the spouse as compensation.
A argued that merely passing funds briefly through the spouse's account should not be considered a gift, as this was a misclassification.
After review, the Tax Tribunal found that during the tax investigation, A failed to sufficiently submit key evidence such as the memorandum of understanding, gift contract, and hardware wallet photos, resulting in procedural flaws;
Meanwhile, the distribution of 67 Bitcoins transferred into A's account and 13 remaining under the spouse's name was internally consistent with A's statements.
Based on this, the tribunal ruled that a re-investigation is necessary regarding the actual ownership of the hardware wallet and the substantive ownership of the digital assets.
This case is regarded as a landmark in South Korea's crypto asset tax practice, directly addressing the challenges of asset ownership recognition in cold wallets and the tax classification of cross-account transfers.
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