India Crypto Tax Filings Lagged Trading Activity: Reuters

India’s tax department reportedly found that fewer than a quarter of the 645,000 people who made crypto transactions reported them on tax returns.

India’s tax department reportedly found widespread gaps in crypto tax reporting, warning that offshore exchanges, private wallets and peer-to-peer (P2P) trades are making crypto activity harder to track.

Reuters on Wednesday reported government documents showed that fewer than a quarter of 645,000 individuals who made crypto transactions in the year ending in March 2023 reported the trades on their tax returns. The department also reportedly estimated that India had about 39 million crypto traders holding over $2.1 billion in crypto at the end of May.

The findings add a tax-enforcement factor to the country’s long-running digital asset policy debate, moving the issue beyond the central bank's financial-stability concerns and into questions on offshore trading and recoverable tax revenue. India was ranked first in Chainalysis' 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

The report comes days after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) backed a containment strategy for crypto assets. On July 3, the central bank urged lawmakers to keep banks and financial institutions insulated from cryptocurrencies and privately issued stablecoins. The RBI reportedly said prohibition remained a recognized policy option and recommended preventing digital asset use in payments and settlements.

Cointelegraph sought comment from India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes but had not received a response by publication.

India is not the only jurisdiction struggling to bring crypto activity into the tax net. In Israel, a voluntary disclosure program aimed at crypto profits fell short of expectations, according to a June 3 report by local business outlet Globes.

The Israel Tax Authority (ITA) reportedly expected to collect 2 billion to 3 billion Israeli shekels (about $650 million to $986 million) from the process, which offered criminal immunity to taxpayers who would disclose previously hidden capital.

Related: Petition to scrap South Korea's crypto tax reaches 50K threshold

Despite this, only 289 disclosure requests had been submitted since the program was launched in August 2025, with reported capital totaling 676.5 million shekels and estimated tax due of 40.9 million shekels. The figure was a sharp miss compared with the expectations and with the estimated crypto tax gap.

Globes cited tax experts who said the program’s lack of an anonymous disclosure track had weakened the incentive for crypto holders to come forward.

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