India’s income tax department has reportedly issued tax notices to a number of cryptocurrency traders following a nationwide survey of cryptocurrency exchanges.
Speaking to Reuters, tax officials in India have revealed that the country’s citizens participated in over $3.5 billion in transactions and investments into cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum and ripple over a 17-month period leading up to 2018.
As reported in mid-December, Indian tax sleuths visited a number of exchanges to survey transactions and gather ‘evidence establishing the identity of investors and traders, transactions undertaken by them, identity of counterparties, [and] related bank accounts used, among others.” At the time, the authority said it was looking into instances of money laundering and tax evasion. Within a day of the on-site ‘surveys’, the IT (income tax) department confirmed its intention to collect taxes from investors.
Having amassed the data, the Indian government’s tax authority has now reportedly sent notices to “tens of thousands” of citizens invested in cryptocurrencies. In it, the government is asking adopters to file taxes on capital gains as well as seeking details of their ‘total holdings and the source of funds’, per the report, having seen one of the tax notices issued.
Source/More: India’s Tax Authority Sends Notices to ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Cryptocurrency Traders: Report
