[2017-12-13]Tax Investigators Raid Bitcoin Exchanges Across India

[Zicadis]

Investigators from the income tax department of India have conducted onsite searches at the offices of the country’s top nine bitcoin exchanges early on Wednesday morning.
Government officials told the Indian news agency PTI that multiple teams of detectives from the tax department, under the command of the Bengaluru investigation wing, surveyed the trading venues in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Gurugram.
This action was taken under section 133A of the Indian Income Tax Act for “gathering evidence for establishing the identity of investors and traders, transaction undertaken by them, identity of counter-parties, related bank accounts used, among others,” according to the quoted officials.

The teams of detectives are said to be armed with various financial data and inputs about the workings of the exchanges. Reports called this the first big action against the exchanges operating in the country, suggesting that more is to come.

read more https://news.bitcoin.com/tax-investigators-raid-bitcoin-exchanges-across-india/

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[1Referee]

Not really surprising. Crypto in its entirity is going through significant growth, which is of course something governments want to exploit due to their hunger for tax income and control. All people being fully verified at whatever exchange or service are exposed to this risk, it's that simple. Coinbase has been subject to a similar governmental attack, but they at least managed to minimize the amount of data they had to hand over to the authorities. Decentralized exchanges are available already, but they lack actual usage and convenience, which makes people always fall back on centralized exchanges. If governments don't charge people absurdly high tax rates, people would be far more open to pay tax out of free will rather than being forced to do so.

[iram1011]

Not really surprising. Crypto in its entirity is going through significant growth, which is of course something governments want to exploit due to their hunger for tax income and control. All people being fully verified at whatever exchange or service are exposed to this risk, it's that simple. Coinbase has been subject to a similar governmental attack, but they at least managed to minimize the amount of data they had to hand over to the authorities. Decentralized exchanges are available already, but they lack actual usage and convenience, which makes people always fall back on centralized exchanges. If governments don't charge people absurdly high tax rates, people would be far more open to pay tax out of free will rather than being forced to do so.

Regarding tax and India, out of billion + population only 1.5% pay tax. People are manipulating their incomes to escape taxes. In such a situation, government needs to take action. Regarding cryptocurrencies, Indian government and central bank have been wary of bitcoin for a long time now. Where central bank is warning people, government is calling bitcoin illegal. In such a situation, this IT raid was something expected and I hope exchanges will be able to maintain users privacy.

[cynical]

Not really surprising. Crypto in its entirity is going through significant growth, which is of course something governments want to exploit due to their hunger for tax income and control. All people being fully verified at whatever exchange or service are exposed to this risk, it's that simple. Coinbase has been subject to a similar governmental attack, but they at least managed to minimize the amount of data they had to hand over to the authorities. Decentralized exchanges are available already, but they lack actual usage and convenience, which makes people always fall back on centralized exchanges. If governments don't charge people absurdly high tax rates, people would be far more open to pay tax out of free will rather than being forced to do so.

Regarding tax and India, out of billion + population only 1.5% pay tax. People are manipulating their incomes to escape taxes. In such a situation, government needs to take action. Regarding cryptocurrencies, Indian government and central bank have been wary of bitcoin for a long time now. Where central bank is warning people, government is calling bitcoin illegal. In such a situation, this IT raid was something expected and I hope exchanges will be able to maintain users privacy.

only 1.5% paying tax is a farce, how can a country expect to function properly with such low revenues?
India really seems to br starting a war against Bitcoin and crypto with these extreme actions.
can we expect to see "tax requests and collections" across the world as crypto takes more of a hold i wonder?

[iamTom123]

Not really surprising. Crypto in its entirity is going through significant growth, which is of course something governments want to exploit due to their hunger for tax income and control. All people being fully verified at whatever exchange or service are exposed to this risk, it's that simple. Coinbase has been subject to a similar governmental attack, but they at least managed to minimize the amount of data they had to hand over to the authorities. Decentralized exchanges are available already, but they lack actual usage and convenience, which makes people always fall back on centralized exchanges. If governments don't charge people absurdly high tax rates, people would be far more open to pay tax out of free will rather than being forced to do so.

Regarding tax and India, out of billion + population only 1.5% pay tax. People are manipulating their incomes to escape taxes. In such a situation, government needs to take action. Regarding cryptocurrencies, Indian government and central bank have been wary of bitcoin for a long time now. Where central bank is warning people, government is calling bitcoin illegal. In such a situation, this IT raid was something expected and I hope exchanges will be able to maintain users privacy.

The main reason for this is because the government still has to enact the needed regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency business in the country. This is a growing industry and if the country will formally recognize this sector then they can easily implement the tax laws on the players. India must learned on how Japan is handling Bitcoin and Bitcoin exchanges so they can also get benefited with rising income and capital gains tax they can collect. Looking for ways to increase tax revenues, then this fledgling industry can be what they are looking for but if they use regulations just to stifle it then in the end all of them will experience a loss-loss situation.

The problem is many of those authorities are looking at Bitcoin at the wrong way as they are more focused on how they can be able to control this whole thing rather than make it fairer and stricter so that they can help in weeding out scammers and the bad elements of the industry. India has the potential to be a big player in the Bitcoin market and we are all hoping that soon the country would see the light and will allow Bitcoin to flourish.

[Carlton Banks]

only 1.5% paying tax is a farce, how can a country expect to function properly with such low revenues?

Anything countries can do, people can do. Countries are really just groups of people. Countries aren't necessary.

You're gonna have a painful adjustment period once cryptocurrency goes truly mainstream, if you continue to believe in state government as the religious believe in God.

[uslfd]

Well actually im quite happy the govt is trying to raise tax from crypto... because once they start raising tax from all the gains people make from BTC - they could not stop and hence won't ban BTC 

[Guardian.P]

only 1.5% paying tax is a farce, how can a country expect to function properly with such low revenues?

Anything countries can do, people can do. Countries are really just groups of people. Countries aren't necessary.

You're gonna have a painful adjustment period once cryptocurrency goes truly mainstream, if you continue to believe in state government as the religious believe in God.

So far, bitcoin and its users are suffering the blows of the steel fist of different governments. I'm afraid that when they get a retaliatory strike, which will be knocked out for them