Sushil Kumar Modi, a member of Parliament (MP), has urged India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to consider raising the capital gains tax on crypto income to over 30%, the flat rate scheduled to kick in from April 1.
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Fast facts
- The minister argued that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of cryptocurrencies is so high that “investors are attracted by the extraordinary profits.”
- “Bitcoin’s CAGR is 115% while that of Ethereum is 30%,” Modi said. “People who really make an income from crypto, 30% [tax] is not going to make any difference to them.”
- On top of the 30% tax on crypto income, India is slated to introduce a 1% tax deducted at source for every crypto transaction made from July 1.
- India’s crypto investors, traders as well as exchange owners took to social media to urge the finance minister to reconsider high taxation on an asset class that is still very nascent.
- MP Priyanka Chaturvedi was one of the few ministers who came forward in support of crypto trading in India, championing the creation of a regulatory framework to aid innovation.
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