Big action of DGGI on Cryptocurrency exchange companies, raids on GST evasion

The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) raided around half a dozen cryptocurrency service providers in the country after WazirX came to the fore of massive evasion of Goods and Services Tax (GST). News agency ANI has given this information. ANI reports that tax evasion of Rs 70 crore has been detected in DGGI action. "Around half a dozen offices of cryptocurrency service providers have been searched and GST evasion on a large scale has been unearthed by DGGI," ANI reported quoting sources.

On 30 December 2021, DGGI Mumbai Zone launched an investigation by WazirX for alleged evasion of Rs 40.5 crore in GST. Late on December 30, the tax department recovered Rs 49.2 crore including GST plus interest and penalty from the company. At the same time, now according to some media reports, DGGI is also planning to crack down on NFT platforms.

Bitsifer Labs LLP (Coinswitch Kuber), Neblio Technologies Pvt Ltd (CoinDCX), I Block Technologies Pvt Ltd (BuyuCoin) and Unocoin Technologies Pvt Ltd (Unocoin) are being investigated by DGGI. Investigation is going on regarding GST evasion on all.

ANI quoted the source as saying, “He is providing facilitation intermediary services for buying and selling of crypto coins. These services attract a GST rate of 18 percent, which all of them have been avoiding.” “These service providers were charging a commission for facilitating involvement in the exchange of bitcoins but were not paying GST tax,” the source said. It was intercepted by DGGI.

Let us tell you that the business of crypto has grown very fast in India. India has been ranked second among 154 countries in the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index released by Chainalysis.