The Indian government’s love-hate relationship with crypto garnered some clarity during the Union Budget 2022-23. The budget revealed that India was finally traversing into the digital phase with virtual assets. The Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made several announcements, but the stature of crypto in the country remained under the wraps. Nevertheless, the government wanted in on all the profits amassed through crypto. Therefore, Indian crypto investors were slapped with a whopping 30% tax on any income from virtual assets.
Investors from India were partially happy as they could trade without having to worry about the legality of cryptocurrencies. However, the exorbitant percentage of tax brought them down. The crypto tax was considered to be the highest tax band in the country. This paved the way for an uproar in the Indian market.
Indian crypto investors came together on Twitter to scrap this “unreasonable” tax imposed on crypto. As “#reducecryptotax” was trending on Twitter a petition seeking a rebuttal on crypto tax was making the rounds.
The petition started by Aditya Singh managed to bag over 17k signatures within hours. The petition points out how 15 to 20 million Indian crypto investors would be impacted by the harsh tax law imposed by the government.
An array of people came forward to sign the petition and urged the Indian finance minister to reconsider the crypto tax. Furthermore, the numbers tweets regarding the same crossed 100k tweets.
To be or not to be? Indian crypto investors in a dilemma
Sitharaman during the budget meeting said,
“Any income from virtual digital assets is taxable at 30%… There will be no deduction with exception of the cost of acquisition. The TDS is applicable beyond a specified monetary threshold, and the gift of virtual currencies is taxable in the hands of the recipient.”
While several in the community were furious, Nischal Shetty, the founder and CEO of the Indian crypto exchange, WazirX pointed out that clarity on crypto was good. Following the budget meeting, Shetty took to Twitter and noted that even though there was a “lot unpack” the fact that India taxed crypto was a positive move. He further tweeted,
Additionally, Bitcoin was started for those aspiring for financial freedom. An industry free from the shackles of centralized systems. However, India’s latest move of imposing a 30% tax on crypto income demented the ethos of the crypto-verse. The extensive tax percentage on crypto has the community speculating that the multitude of Indian crypto investors would gradually diminish.