Cheongju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do promotes seizure of cryptocurrencies (virtual assets) such as bitcoins for those who are delinquent in local tax of 500,000 won or more.
The city requested a cryptocurrency exchange to inquire about their cryptocurrency holdings for 5723 delinquents.
According to the Supreme Court ruling, virtual assets are recognized as intangible assets and property can be confiscated.
With the revision of the ‘Act on the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information (Specific Financial Information Act)’, virtual asset business operators have to fulfill their obligations such as customer identification and suspicious transaction reporting like existing financial companies, making asset tracking possible.
In the first half of this year, the city investigated the history of cryptocurrency holdings among 13,000 delinquents, and seized and collected 360 million won in local tax arrears from 180 people.
There is also a case where a delinquent person caught and seized 270 million won of cryptocurrency and received the full amount of 20 million won in tax delinquent.
The city plans to check the status of holdings through transaction information owned by delinquents at four cryptocurrency exchanges, including Upbit and Coinone, and seize and collect cryptocurrencies according to the results.
A city official said, “We will do our best to thoroughly collect the amount of arrears from people who have hidden their assets and are in arrears.”
