New Delhi: While cryptocurrencies continue to penetrate the metropolitan as well as Tier II & Tier III cities, as many as 11 crypto exchanges have been found to be evading taxes, said Government in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on March 28.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told the House that government had launched action against 11 crypto exchanges for alleged tax evasion of upto Rs 81.54 crore. When it’s added up with penalty & interest charges, the amount swells to Rs 95.86 crore.
Chaudhary informed that a couple of cases of tax fudging was spotted by the GST committees.
A leading portal also gave break up of individual exchanges as to how much outstanding amount was due on them. CoinDCX owed Rs 15.7 crore to the tax authorities. The MoS informed that about 17.1 crore has already been recovered from the exchange, including interest levy & penalty charge.
Buy Uncoin was found to be have duped the investors and pocketed Rs 1.05 crore as illegal proceeds while CoinSwitch Kuber was found involved in tax evasion of Rs 13.76 crore. According to reports, Rs 1.1 crore and R 16.07 crore has been recovered from Buy Uncoin and CoinSwitch Kuber respectively.
Awlencan Innovations India (Zebpay) has been charged of Rs 2.01 crore tax evasion while Rs 2.5 crore has been recovered. Unocoin is facing probe for not paying taxes to the amount of Rs 2.97 crore.
Experts opine that crypto trading laws in the country are still unclear but can it justify the illicit trade practices & tax evasion.
In Budget 2022, the Finance Minister had fixed taxation in the digital asset at 30 percent. Also, the loss from transfer of one digital asset couldn’t be offset against gains from the other.