From a price of Rs 23000 per bitcoin before demonetisation to Rs 10 lakh presently, the Income tax is readily realising that Bitcoins are clearly the currency to vote for.
But are bitcoins, maturing as a convention of laundering money? The Income Tax deems so and promptly raided Bitcoin exchanges across the country on Wednesday.
Nine exchanges were raided under the control of the Bengaluru investigation wing. Surveys were conveyed in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi and Gurugram, since the preceding morning.
The survey is being escorted for gathering evidence for establishing the identity of investors and traders, transaction is undertaken by them, identity of counterparties, related bank accounts used, among others
-said Income tax officials.
The survey teams are armed with various financial data and inputs about the working of these exchanges and this is the first big action against them in the country.
-said various sources.
Bitcoin, as a cryptocurrency, is not governed by the country and its dissemination has been a cause of solicitude among central bankers around the world for considerably a while now.
The RBI says-
Bitcoins are a commodity and not a currency and need to be regulated accordingly. The Reserve Bank of India has also cautioned users, holders and traders of virtual currencies, including bitcoins.
The Income tax is also seeing at whether cryptocurrencies should be represented in income tax returns.
And the worry for security agencies is that e-wallets are virtually undetectable and can, therefore, be used for funding terrorism and terrorist activities. Cyber experts are also influencing other uses of cryptocurrency, for example, political funding.
Delhi police officials say-
There have been cases of extortion using bitcoins. The East District last month stumbled across a fraud of Rs 2 crore using bitcoins where one company accused the other of not honouring its word in providing the virtual currency after taking the money.
In March, the Minister of Finance of India had framed an Inter-Disciplinary Committee to take funds from the present rank of VCs both in India and globally, and suggest stratagems for apportioning with before-mentioned currencies.
