GST dept recovers Rs 49.20 crore cash from WazirX for evading tax
Mumbai, Jan 1 (UNI) CGST Mumbai Zone has recovered Rs 49.20 crores in cash pertaining to GST evaded by WazirX, a cryptocurrency exchange in India. The department also detected GST evasion of Rs 40.5 crores.
The findings came to light while investigating the business activities of WazirX.
During the probe, the department noticed that the firm used to collect revenue from commission as trading fees, deposit fees and withdrawal fees, and was paying GST only on commission earned in rupee, but evading GST on commission earned in WRX.
“GST at the rate of 18 percent is applicable on these transaction fees. As such, GST of Rs 40.5 crores was not paid, which was paid along with interest and penalty on 30.12.21. Total Rs 49.2 crores have been recovered on the spot from the WazirX. Further investigation is in progress,” the department said.
The above case is a part of the special anti-tax evasion drive, which relies on intensive data mining and data analytics, initiated by the CGST Mumbai Zone, it added.
The GST officers are investigating business transactions related to emerging economic space like e-commerce, online gaming, Non-Fungible Tokens to identify the areas of possible tax evasion.
The department will cover all the cryptocurrency exchanges falling in the Mumbai zone and will also intensify this drive in the coming days.
WazirX exchange is managed by Zanmai Labs Pvt Ltd and cryptocurrency ‘WRX’ is owned by Binance Investment Co. Ltd, Seychelles. WazirX was registered as Zanmai Labs in December 2017 as a domestic cryptocurrency startup.
The exchange provides options to a trader to transact in Rupee or WRX. The WRX has to be purchased from the WazirX platform.
The firm is charging commission on each transaction in cryptocurrency from buyer and seller both. However, the rate of commission is different for both the transactions. The transaction in rupee attracts the commission of 0.2 percent and transaction in WRX attracts the commission of 0.1 percent.