“The Virtual Digital Asset (VDA) industry in India has immense potential to contribute to the nation’s digital economy. To fully harness this opportunity, the upcoming Budget provides a crucial moment to refine taxation policies, fostering both growth and compliance within the sector.
We propose a reduction in the Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) on VDA transactions from the current 1% to 0.01%. This adjustment would significantly ease compliance challenges and promote market transparency while ensuring the tracking and tracing of transactions and boosting tax revenues. Additionally, we recommend raising the TDS applicability threshold from INR 10,000/50,000 to INR 5,00,000. This would protect small investors and traders from undue tax burdens, ensuring fair treatment across the board.
To further support the industry’s growth, we advocate for aligning the taxation of VDA income with other asset classes and removing the current discriminatory treatment. Allowing taxpayers to set off or carry forward losses, as permitted under capital gains provisions, would establish parity and create an environment for innovation.
We are hopeful that the government will recognize the VDA industry’s potential and take steps toward balanced and progressive policies that enable its growth.”
Pre-Budget quote from Devam Sardana, Business Head, Lemonn.
From Industry Perspective:
In the last budget, there was a dual impact of STT increase and LTCG increase (on listed shares) on the users with an increase in trading costs as well as impact on profitability of the users. Given that the revenue generation would have significantly increased with STT, this can potentially be used to revert the LTCG to 10% in order to ensure even higher market participation and incentivise long-term investment which is critical for the users and the capital market stability. This can also address reduction in the flight of capital from India towards global markets and potentially contribute to rupee appreciation as well.
