South Korea’s National Tax Service: If tax evaders are suspected of hiding crypto assets, they will conduct home searches and confiscate cold wallet devices.

PANews reported on October 10th that, according to Cointelegraph, South Korea’s National Tax Service is stepping up its crackdown on tax evasion, warning that crypto assets stored in cold wallets could be seized. Officials stated that suspected tax evaders of hiding crypto assets offline will be subject to home searches and the confiscation of hard drives and cold wallets. Under the National Tax Collection Act, the National Tax Service can request account information from local exchanges, freeze accounts, and liquidate assets to offset taxes. While cold wallets provide security for crypto assets, they can also be used to hide assets, complicating tax collection and administration. As of June, there were nearly 11 million cryptocurrency investors in the country, an increase of nearly 800% from 2020. During the same period, trading volume increased from 1 trillion won (approximately US$730 million) to 6.4 trillion won (approximately US$4.7 billion). The popularity of cryptocurrency has led to an increase in tax evasion cases. In the first operation of 2021, approximately US$50 million in cryptocurrency was seized, bringing the total amount of seized and liquidated to US$108 million over the past four years.