In her Budget Speech 2022, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman shed light on tax liabilities for virtual assets like cryptocurrencies.

Key Facts

• Income from any digital asset will now be taxed at 30 percent. There will be no deduction with exception of acquisition cost and TDS applicable beyond specified monetary threshold.
• Loss from transfer of these digital assets cannot be set off against any other income.
• There will be a tax deduction of 1% at source on such transactions.
• Gifts of such assets will also be taxed.
• 30% tax was proposed on digital asset gains, irrespective of short or long-term holdings.

Legal status of digital assets

Recognition of digital assets under income tax is not similar to granting legal status.

About the bill

Bill provides for definition of virtual digital asset. It is wide enough to cover emerging digital assets such as assets in meta verse, NFT, tokens, digital currencies, etc. Bill also specifies a rider that no deduction will be allowed in respect of expenditure incurred on virtual digital assets except on cost of acquisition. In order to monitor Crypto transactions, a TDS of 1% will be levied on discharge of consideration whenever virtual digital asset will be transferred. It also provides for taxation on gift of virtual digital assets. In this case, recipient will be taxed. This will bring in additional challenges in operation of crypto exchanges worldwide and privacy concerns for individuals.

By: Brijesh Kumar