Budget 2023: Crypto Industry Expects Govt To Rationalize The 30% Tax

The Indian government took its first step towards regularising crypto by introducing a formal tax regime for digital assets. The formal tax structure gives institutional investors much-needed clarity and direction to look at digital assets as an alternate asset class. Today, India has an estimated 15 million cryptocurrency users. It is also home to 11% of the global Web3.0 talents, employing nearly 75,000 blockchain professionals with 450+ Web3.0 and blockchain startups operating out of India. These figures alone signify the budding web3 ecosystem in India. The Indian IT ecosystem is perfectly positioned to build the web3 and blockchain economy of the future and is poised to play a crucial role in fulfilling the Government of India's vision and mission of 'Make in India' for the world.

30% of the current crypto investors fall under the age of 30. Since this is the age when a person starts their journey towards financial planning and stability, we believe that the Government should rationalise the 30% tax to foster a thriving IT and web3 ecosystem that will drive innovation and growth in the country. Also, with Institutional investors in the picture, storing digital assets in a secure and compliant way becomes an absolute necessity. India needs professional digital wallet infrastructure companies which are regulated, compliant, and licensed to boost the confidence of retail and institutional stakeholders.

Considering this, we hope that the upcoming union budget will create a regulatory framework for digital wallet companies and a single window clearance to register and operate in India under the supervision of relevant regulatory authorities. We request an infrastructure status for digital wallet infrastructure service providers so that they can actively contribute towards making India a $5 trillion digital economy.

(Mahin Gupa is the founder of Liminal, a digital wallet infrastructure platform)