The Government of India has collected Rs 437.43 crores in income tax on cryptocurrencies and other virtual digital assets (VDAs) in the financial year 2023-2024, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written response in the Lok Sabha on July 21.
In FY22-23, the income tax collected on crypto was around Rs 269.09 crores, growing nearly 62.5 percent year-on-year as of FY24. The government, however, didn’t have the latest numbers for FY24-25 since the due date for tax filing is still on.
This is the first time the government has disclosed the details of crypto taxes collected since it was implemented in 2022. The government had imposed 30 percent tax on gains from virtual digital assets (VDAs) and a 1 percent TDS (tax deducted at source) on every transaction of Rs 10,000 and more.
In his response to a question raised, Chaudhary shared, “The Government is utilizing data analytics tools to trace and detect tax evasion from VDA related transactions. The analysis includes the use of Non-Filer Monitoring System (NMS), Project Insight and internal databases of the Income Tax Department, to correlate available information on VDA transactions with the transactions disclosed in the return of income by the taxpayer.”
Chaudhary added that the Central Board of Direct Taxes has initiated NUDGE (Non-Intrusive use of Data to Guide and Enable) campaign to identify such discrepancies for further action.
“Under NUDGE campaign suitable communications, to review and update their income tax returns, were issued to all taxpayers who did not report VDA related transactions in their income tax returns, despite tax being deducted at source for such transactions by VASPs, where the quantum of such discrepancy was more than Rs 1 lakh,” he said.
In April 2025, Moneycontrol had exclusively reported that the many crypto investors has started receiving income tax notices from the IT Department over non-payment of taxes on peer-to-peer (P2P) trades through foreign exchanges.
The government is now also beefing its team through capacity-building initiatives to equip officers through training programs, specialized workshops, Chintan Shivirs and hands-on workshops -- for effective compliance monitoring and investigation of VDA related transactions.
“At local level, field offices conduct training sessions and webinars on digital forensics, Blockchain analysis, legal frameworks, and handling of digital evidence. The officers and officials are also imparted short term training on digital forensics, in partnership with National Forensic Science University (NFSU), Goa, which empower them to identify and trace VDA related transactions from data captured during intrusive actions,” Chaudhary said.
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