미국의 가상화폐에 대한 과세제도와 그 시사점

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution, especially, digital revolution has generated a lot of new technologies and economic phenomena in whole society and economy and, among them, the virtual currency such as bitcoin has a great effect on society, finance, economy nowadays. A taxation on an incomes derived from virtual currencies has become a main issue worldwide, and, therefore, each country starts to tax on income from transaction involved virtual currencies. In 2020, Korea introduced a bill regarding new tax rules on virtual property, in which the income derived from a transfer, exchange or lending of a virtual property is taxed as other income in Income Tax Act by applying 20% tax rate separately from other income. It is the beginning of taxation of virtual currencies in Korea, therefore there would be incomplete or problems could be found. To cope with these problems, it is necessary to study the tax treatment of virtual currencies in other countries. Since 2014, the U.S. has classified a virtual currency as a property, and imposed the capital gain tax on the income arising from transfer or exchange of a virtual currency. Further, Internal Revenue Service has published guidances like FAQs or Revenue Ruling 2019-24 to help taxpayers. In this regard, it is helpful to study the U.S. tax system for virtual currencies to draw some meaningful implications to the Korean system. This article does a comparative study between the U.S. taxation on virtual currencies and the Korean one and draw some implications as follows: Firstly, it would be better to tax incomes from transactions of virtual properties as capital gain not other income in considering the aim and the nature of capital gain and other income of Income Tax Act. Secondly, as for the mining of a virtual currency, it is necessary to classify a taxpayer as a hobby miner and a business miner. In case of a business miner, any mining business is likely to belong to the information communication business in KSIC, and therefore, it may be taxed as a business income in Income Tax Act without any amendment of law. As for a hobby miner, if the hobby miner earns incomes more than a certain amount, for instance $400 in U.S., his/her income should be deemed as a business income, and if a hobby miner’s does not amount to the certain amount, he/she is liable to tax as other income. Thirdly, in case where a taxpayer is paid with virtual currencies, the payment can be classified as a wage and salary income, a business income, or an other income according to the taxpayers status for the income tax purpose, and the provision of the Value Added Tax Act for the evaluation of the non-monetary payment can be applied to the evaluation of the virtual currency payment Lastly, it is appropriate to tax virtual currencies received by hard fork or airdrop as an other income in Income Tax Act as provided in 2020 bill. However, it would be great to publish some administrative notice to help taxpayers.