11 crypto exchanges found to be evading Rs 81.54 cr in GST, says govt

business-standard.com:

The central government has recovered around Rs 96 crore from at least eleven crypto exchanges for evading Goods and Services Tax (GST), showed data released by Parliament on Monday. The amount includes interest and penalty,

The GST investigation department has detected a total evasion of Rs 81.54 crore by crypto exchanges that included WazirX, Coin DCX and CoinSwitch Kuber, said Pankaj Chaudhary, minister of state for finance, in a written reply.

Data showed that Zanmai Labs, which operates as WazirX brand, evaded Rs 40.5 crore. WazirX exchange is managed by Zanmai Labs and cryptocurrency WRX is owned by Binance Investment Co. Ltd, Seychelles. The total recovery was about Rs 50 crore from the exchange which includes interest and penalty.

The exchange provides options to a trader to transact in Rupee or WRX. The WRX has to be purchased from the WazirX platform.

The department has alleged that during the investigation, it came to the notice of officials that the taxpayer used to collect revenue from commission as trading fees, deposit fees and withdrawal fees.

Coin DCX came second on the list with an evasion Rs 15.70 crore followed by CoinSwitch Kuber and Giottus Technologies. These exchanges paid back Rs 17.10 crore and Rs 3.50 crore respectively including interest and penalty.

Officers of the Central GST Mumbai zone are investigating business transactions related to emerging economic space like e-commerce, online gaming, non-fungible tokens to identify the areas of possible tax evasion.