Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 1: The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) discovered widespread tax fraud after conducting searches at many key cryptocurrency service providers around the country.
According to sources, around Rs. 70 crore worth of tax evasion has been detected during the crackdown on cryptocurrency trade by Mumbai CGST and DGGI.
“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,” sources said.
Official sources further said, “They are providing facilitation intermediary services for buying and selling of crypto coins. These services attract GST rate of duty of 18 percent which all of them have been evading.”
Authorities from the DGGI also searched the offices of WazirX, a cryptocurrency exchange service provider, a day after the firm was fined Rs 49.20 crore for tax evasion.
While probing the business activities of cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, the GST Mumbai (East Commissionerate Zone) discovered GST evasion of Rs 40.5 crore. The agency claimed in a statement that they had collected Rs 49.20 crore in cash from the firm, including interest and penalties.
The crackdown on cryptocurrency exchange service providers comes months after India said that it would introduce legislation to regulate cryptocurrency, which is currently unregulated in the country despite a growing investment in this type of currency.
A cryptocurrency is a type of electronic money. It is based on a technology known as block-chain. Bitcoin and Ethereum are two popular cryptocurrencies. Their prices have plummeted as a result of the government’s decision to introduce a bill to regulate cryptocurrency in India.
Cryptography, a complicated software coding technique, protects cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin blockchain technology can be thought of as a distributed ledger that is kept on a network of computers. Cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on separate blockchain ledgers.
