Now Reading: Crypto tax stays at 30%, new reporting rules from April 2026
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Crypto tax stays at 30%, new reporting rules from April 2026
Corrected 30 September 2026: a weekday that is not in the source removed. Analysis rewritten from the sources.
The Story in Brief
The Income-tax Act, 2025, effective from 1 April 2026, retains the 30 per cent flat tax on all gains from transferring virtual digital assets (VDAs), including cryptocurrencies and NFTs, experts said.
The 1 per cent TDS on crypto transactions continues, now under Section 393(1). Investors cannot deduct trading fees, platform charges or advisory expenses. Losses from one VDA cannot be set off against gains from another, nor carried forward. The new Section 509 creates a mandatory reporting framework: exchanges must verify user identities, determine tax residency and file annual transaction-level reports through Form 167, covering crypto-to-crypto trades, fiat conversions and wallet transfers.
The core arithmetic remains unchanged, but the compliance burden intensifies as the tax department gains direct visibility into exchange activity. For individual investors, correctly reporting taxable income in their returns remains their responsibility.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The new Act changes labels more than liabilities. The 30% rate moves from Section 115BBH to Section 194(1) and the 1% TDS from Section 194S to Section 393(1), and the Act now says "Tax Year" where it said "Assessment Year" and "Previous Year". The arithmetic is unchanged: only the acquisition cost is deductible, and VDA losses cannot be set off or carried forward. What is new is Section 509, under which exchanges and custodial platforms must identify users, verify tax residency and file transaction-level reports through Form 167, including transfers to external wallets. KoinX's Punit Agarwal points to the limit of that trail: once an asset sits in a personal wallet, its activity has no reporting at all, which is why the experts advise keeping wallet histories, TDS certificates and cost records for every asset.
Corrected 30 September 2026: a weekday that is not in the source removed. Analysis rewritten from the sources.
Source: livemint.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Methodology and corrections.
