The Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT has issued a new directive that requires cryptocurrency exchanges to collect and preserve a wide range of client data for five years, 60 days after the date of issuance on April 28.
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Fast facts
- “During the course of handling cyber incidents and interactions with the constituency, CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) has identified certain gaps causing hindrance in incident analysis,” the IT ministry office said in its directive.
- “To address the identified gaps and issues so as to facilitate incident response measures, CERT-In has issued directions relating to information security practices, procedure, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents.”
- “This is a very thoughtful move from the IT ministry. We request even the income tax dept. to take balanced view about taxes and TDS,” Sathvik Vishwanath, co-founder of Unocoin, said on Twitter.
- The Indian government has taken several steps to track and curb local cryptocurrency trades.
- A 1% tax deducted at source (TDS), which serves to assist monitoring transactions, kicks in on July 1.
- India imposed a 30% flat tax on all crypto income on April 1, where losses made in one cryptocurrency cannot be set off with gains made on other crypto investments.
See related story: India to make life hell for crypto investors: MP