Indian Tax Official Recovered $6.23M From WazirX After Evading Taxes

Indian Tax official recovered $6.23 million from the WazirX exchange after evading tax commissions so let’s read further in today’s crypto latest news.

The Government officials from CGST Mumbai Zone recovered the funds from the WazirX crypto exchange after detecting a GST evasion of $5.43 million made on trading commissions. The Indian tax official reportedly paid over $6.6 million following the non-payment of Goods and Services Tax on trade Commissions. The total recovery includes a pending tax of $5.43 million with the interest and penalty for non-payment.

Day 1000

What a milestone for Indian Crypto!

With #IndiaWantsCrypto my mission has been:

– Bring positive crypto regulation in India
– Spread right information about Crypto

Lakhs of people have joined this campaign

Let’s continue our mission

Jai Hind 🇮🇳#IndiaWantsCrypto

— Nischal (WazirX) ⚡️ (@NischalShetty) July 28, 2021

The government officials from the Central GST and Excise committee recovered the funds from the exchange after detecting a GST evasion of $5.43 million and the typical GST fraud involves creating fake invoices but without actually moving the goods between the buyers and sellers. According to teh local media Economic Times, the tax department detected that the exchange uses its in-house WRX tokens for the commission that was initially distributed by Zanmai Labs. Further investigation revealed that the exchange missed out on paying 18% tax on the tokens issued based on the market price. The investigators revealed that WazirX paid GST on the 0.2% commission that it charges users for making trades with the rupee, clarifying:

“But in cases where the trader opts for transaction in WRX coins, the commission charged is 0.1% of trading volume and they were not paying GST on this commission.”

It is also important to note that the exchange and its tokens are owned by Binance which is the world’s biggest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume. WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty said that the importance of regulatory clarity is a key point for retail adoption. He also warned that an overnight regulation could harm the progress of the ecosystem and leave open loopholes for the malicious actors:

“There is a $2.5-trillion market out there, and it is not going to wait for any nation to come on board. I’ve been tweeting ‘#IndiaWantsCrypto’ for over 1,000 days with the sole objective of having crypto regulation in India.”

Officers of CGST Mumbai East comm'te have detected GST Evasion of Rs 40.5 Cr. on commission of Wazir X Crypto Currency & recovered Rs 49.2 Cr. in cash as GST, interest & Penalty today on 30.12.2021 from Zanmai Labs Pvt. Ltd. @nsitharamanoffc @mppchaudhary @cbic_india @PIBMumbai

— CGST Mumbai Zone (@cgstmumbaizone) December 30, 2021

While the GST concept is a new thing in the region, the government of India previously agreed to show leniency to defaulters and the fraudsters usually settle these cases with a monetary penalty with a lower probability of jail time. Zanmai Labs spokesperson said:

“We strongly believe that regulations will provide us with more clarity on taxation so that we can work in sync with the lawmakers, and continue to be a responsible industry player.”

In an attempt to help the Indian government decide crypto laws as the Confederation of Indian Industries proposed to treat these assets as securities of a special class. The report released by the non-government trade association showed the CII proposes the formulation of new regulations around teh crypto market instead of regulating them under existing securities laws.