The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) raided about half a dozen cryptocurrency service providers in the country, after the huge tax evasion of goods and service tax (GST) by WazirX came to light, ANI reported today.
Today’s DGGI crackdown detected tax evasion worth Rs 70 crore, ANI reported. “Around half dozen offices of cryptocurrency service providers have been searched and massive GST evasion has been detected by DGGI,” ANI quoted its official sources as saying.
On December 30, 2021, DGGI Mumbai Zone began an investigation into WazirX for alleged evasion of Rs 40.5 crore in GST. Late on December 30, the tax department recovered Rs 49.2 crore, including the GST plus interest and penalties, from the company.
DGGI is also planning to crack down on NFT platforms and all launches will be scrutinised, two people close to the development told Outlook Money, on the condition of anonymity. “Since this is a matter of GST, it is applicable to all platforms (including NFTs),” said one of the people mentioned earlier.
“The DGGI is investigating Coinswitch Kuber by M/s Bitcipher Labs LLP, CoinDCX by M/s Neblio Technologies PVT. LTD., BuyUCoin by M/S I Block Technologies Pvt. LTD. And Unocoin by M/s Unocoin Technologies Pvt. LTD,” ANI reported.
“They are providing facilitation intermediary services for buying and selling of crypto coins. These services attract GST rate of 18 per cent which all of them have been evading,” said an ANI source.
“These service providers were charging a commission for their facilitation to indulge in exchange of bitcoins but were not paying GST tax. These transactions were intercepted by DGGI and they were confronted with evidence that proved non-payment of GST.”
According to CoinDCX, its crypto app allows users to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in India quickly and has over 7.5 million users, 1 crore downloads with Rs 7 billion cryptos purchased, ANI reported.
CoinSwitch Kuber has processed over $5 billion, BuyUcoin has more than 1 million users and has traded more than $800 million, ANI added.
India ranked second out of 154 countries on the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index by Chainalysis this year.
With inputs from Harsh Kumar
