20% on gains, minimum threshold is $2k/year, filed under income tax, starting October 2021.
Not bad at all. That's the maximum rate on long term capital gains in the US. Short term gains can be taxed as high as 37%.
Not sure what the rationale is behind hitting crypto owners harder than people investing in the stock market, but then again a lot of decisions made by government committees don't make a hell of a lot of sense anyway.
Probably for the same reasons Fincen and the FATF subjected crypto to much lower reporting thresholds vs. traditional banks and money transmitters. For one thing, that's the general direction things are headed: as new laws are passed they are only going to become increasingly rigid, regarding reporting and compliance requirements. The other thing is that crypto really lends itself to tax evasion since it can circumvent third parties who are normally pressured into reporting on or withholding from their customers. Lower thresholds mean more prospective tax evaders will show up on the tax authority's radar.
It seems really strange to me that news stories like this are appearing over 10 years after the creation of bitcoin. It amazes me that there are still governments (and not just Korea's) that haven't completely figured out to handle cryptocurrency from a regulatory standpoint. It's still like the wild west sometimes.
Just goes to show you that governments really do move at a snail's pace.