<Anchor> Although the



price of one bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, fell a little today (15th), it has recently exceeded 70 million won.

Not only the price has risen, but as more people buy and sell it, the average daily transaction amount has jumped 8 times in a year.

Cryptocurrency, which has emerged as a new investment destination, has recently been used as a bad means of hiding property.

People who didn't pay taxes because they didn't have money were caught by the IRS after converting their earned money into virtual currency and hiding it.



This is reporter Lim Tae-woo.



<Reporter>



Mr. A, who runs a hospital in Gangnam, Seoul, said he didn't have the money to pay taxes while living in a luxury apartment, and said he had to pay 2.7 billion won in comprehensive income tax.



However, a survey by the National Tax Service revealed that 3.9 billion won in hospital business income was hidden in virtual currency.



Only after being notified that he would confiscate cryptocurrency, Mr. A paid the back tax.



Mr. B, who sold real estate for 4.8 billion won and did not pay 1.2 billion won in capital gains tax, and Mr. C, an agricultural product trader who was arrears of 600 million won, were also caught hiding their assets with virtual currency.



Cryptocurrency was also used to conceal inheritance.



Mr. D, who inherited 1.7 billion won from his deceased father, did not pay 200 million won in inheritance tax and deducted 500 million won, which is part of the inheritance, into virtual currency.



[Cheol-Woo Jung/Director of Taxation and Legal Affairs Bureau, National Tax Service: As investors and transaction amounts for virtual assets have increased significantly, the possibility of concealing assets as virtual assets has been raised, and compulsory collection has been carried out.]



The National Tax Service detected more than 2,400 high-payers with virtual assets and forcibly collected 36.6 billion won, of which 222 were further confirmed and pursued other charges of tax evasion.



Some delinquents have hurried to sell other assets and pay taxes to protect the soaring cryptocurrency, but the IRS expects that the detection of cryptocurrency assets will be a valid means of collecting arrears tax.



(Video editing: Soyoung Lee, VJ: Hyunwoo Park)