Seoul will water down its tax reform plan by restoring the option for Korean retail investors to keep tax breaks on savings accounts that hold US stock funds.
TrueJudged 13 November 2026
After President Lee Jae-myung ordered a review on 7 August, the government dropped the draft curbs on existing ISAs before the tax bills went to the National Assembly in early September. The five-year contract cap, the ban on carrying over unused annual limits and the 2029 sunset clause were all removed, so the general ISA keeps its tax breaks and can still hold Korea-listed overseas ETFs. The new Productive Finance ISA still excludes those ETFs, and the Assembly has yet to vote on the bill.
A draft plan would have added caps to these tax perks to push household savings into Korean markets instead, but a public backlash forced President Lee to order a full review, and Seoul backed down from a comparable investor tax hike under the same kind of pressure just last year.
Ask Bilbyabout it
Carry the prediction into a question: what has changed since, who decides, and who is exposed.
More from South Korea
27 predictions on South Korea so far, newest first.
See what we’reseeing next.
New predictions in the Asia Daily Take, free every weekday, and in Bilby whenever you have a question.
Get the Asia Daily TakeTry Bilby