17 cryptocurrency exchanges booked for GST evasion of Rs 824.14 crore: MoS Finance

The central tax officials have booked as many as 17 cryptocurrency exchanges for evasion of goods and services tax (GST) amounting to Rs 824.14 crore. The information was provided by Minister of State of Finance Pankaj Chaudhary to the Lok Sabha on December 2.

Of this, the government has recovered Rs 122.29 crore, which includes interest and penalty as well as GST dues, he said in response to an unstarred question on GST evasion by cryptocurrency exchanges.

The evasion includes a case against Nest Services Ltd, which is a Binance group company for evasion of Rs 722.43 crore. No recovery has been made in this case.

Other large GST evasion cases include evasion of Rs 40.51 crore GST by Zanmai Labs Pvt (WazirX), Rs 16.84 crore by CoinDCX and Rs 14.13 crore by CoinSwitch Kuber.

Further, Central GST officials have investigated four investors in virtual digital assets and evasion of Rs 1.76 crore was detected. As much as Rs 2.4 crore has been recovered which includes GST dues, interest and penalty.

“Total 47 Virtual Digital Asset Service Providers (VDA SPs) have been registered as Reporting Entities with Financial Intelligence Unit-India under the Prevention of Money laundering Act, 2002 till date,” the minister further said.