India Alerts 44,057 Crypto Investors in Sweeping Tax Evasion Crackdown
Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s parliament, in a written reply this week that multiple cases of tax evasion involving crypto have been found.
“Cases of tax evasion linked to investments in cryptocurrency and virtual digital assets (VDAs) have been detected by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on multiple occasions over a period of time and necessary action as per Income Tax Act 1961 is taken by the Income Tax Department in such cases,” Chaudhary detailed. He noted that in such instances, the department undertakes measures including nudging taxpayers, e-verification, reassessment, and, where needed, search-and-seizure operations.
Addressing taxpayer awareness, Chaudhary revealed: “CBDT has recently launched NUDGE (Non-Intrusive Usage of Data to Guide and Enable) taxpayers campaign.” The minister added that under this campaign:
44,057 emails and messages have been sent to select taxpayers who had invested and traded in the VDAs but did not report the transactions in Schedule VDA of their income tax returns.
On the financial impact, he detailed that the tax on VDA transfers under section 115BBH, introduced in FY 2022-23, yielded ₹705 crore ($80.50 million) in declared tax across FY 2022-23 and FY 2023-24. Enforcement efforts also uncovered approximately ₹630 crore ($71.94 million) in undisclosed income from VDA-related transactions through search and survey operations.
To ensure accurate reporting, Chaudhary explained:
The CBDT has undertaken various initiatives to ensure accurate reporting and taxation of income from cryptocurrency transactions.
“These include the use of data analytics tools such as the Non-Filer Monitoring System (NMS), Project Insight, and internal databases of the Income Tax Department to correlate available information on virtual digital asset (VDA) transactions with the disclosures made in taxpayers’ income tax returns,” he clarified. The minister further shared that Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) returns from virtual asset service providers are matched with taxpayer filings to flag inconsistencies.
