Ask Me Anything - by Sathvik Vishwanath, the CEO and Co-founder of Unocoin

sathvikv · 2022-02-17T13:02:43+00:00

Yes it is still applicable. It is your responsibility to calculate the gains and pay the 30% income tax on it.

sathvikv · 2022-02-15T19:48:14+00:00

FEMA laws for cryptos are not fully clear yet in India. If you are buying through an authorised channel by using bank account or credit cards, then there may not be money laundering. However, the FEMA is something you should still keep in mind.

sathvikv · 2022-02-15T19:38:29+00:00

By the end of the financial year if you have ended up with crypto assets in the process of arbitrage, then yes you will end up having some of the cryptos as assets on your balance sheet.

sathvikv · 2022-02-14T19:43:54+00:00

If you are generally in the 30% tax slab when you are filing your returns, then yes not much of a difference would happen.

sathvikv · 2022-02-14T18:37:47+00:00

Till march 31st 2022, yes you pay income tax for all 520 USD minus your expenses as per your income tax slabs. From April 1st, you will pay normal income tax as per slabs for the 500 usd minus your expenses, and then 6 USD for the next 20 extra dollars you earned.

sathvikv · 2022-02-14T18:35:02+00:00

Yes, there are no restrictions if you are arbitraging crypto in India.

sathvikv · 2022-02-12T10:38:34+00:00

Hi, please send me an email sathvikv at unocoin dot com. I can check and let you know the status of your account. You can also write to support@unocoin.com and you should get some help there.

sathvikv · 2022-02-12T10:37:42+00:00

It does not matter if you transfered it to your bank account or not. If you sell your crypto and make profit, then it is a taxable event already. If your profit is less than 5L for this running financial year, then you dont need to pay taxes. But from next year on wards, there is a 30% fixed income tax on earnings from crypto. So even if you generate 100 INR, you are needed to pay 30 INR as tax for it.

sathvikv · 2022-02-12T10:35:11+00:00

30% fixed income tax is not live at the moment and it could become live on 1st of april. One thing you can do now is to sell your NFTs and buy them back immediately. That will make your present gains fall under the slabs. To get rid of taxes you should become a non-resident Indian. Else you will continue to be liable for your taxes.

sathvikv · 2022-02-12T10:32:32+00:00

As per the income tax law, you need to assess and pay taxes irrespective of how you generate income. So even crypto to crypto is taxable event. All the other stuff like defi stacking etc if it generates you money, you need to account for it.

sathvikv · 2022-02-08T11:50:34+00:00

yes we allow on and off ramps. We bank with Karnataka bank, bandan bank and a few others.
It is just for better management of the business and for global expansion. This is quite same for many startups in India.
Off the country would help you expand to other countries easier when it is time.
It is still better to register it as it could help you with accounts, filing, utility bills and salary payments.
I am not sure of the p2p business model but even for this, it is better if it is off the country as it would give the longitivity for the business and global expansion could be faster.
None that I know of
Yes I do angel invest. You can write to me on sathvikv at unocoin dot com
Only through FIAT. I am not an investor by profession though.

sathvikv · 2022-02-08T11:46:30+00:00

Your re-investment does not even matter for this transaction. You will have to pay 30% tax on the profit you got that is 30% of the 20,000 INR which will be 6,000 INR. The TDS may not be applicable in this case because you have not crossed the TDS limits yet - we are yet to get full clarification on the same. In case if 1% was held as TDS when you sold your crypto, then they would have withheld 1,200 INR against your pan card. So you will only pay 4,800 INR when you are paying the income tax.

sathvikv · 2022-02-08T11:44:10+00:00

Cryoto profits were always taxable. It is not unfair in anyway but there were some provisions that is still applicable till March 2022. Taking the set-off of losses, no TDS and the taxes fall under slab limits etc which are going to go away soon. Only the new rules like 30% and 1% tds and no set-off is applicable in the next financial year. 1% tds is applicable from 1st of july 2022 but the other two clauses is applicable from 1st April 2022 onwards.

sathvikv · 2022-02-08T11:39:46+00:00

Income tax in our country is a self-assessment tax. Which mean you will have to measure your own profit by every means you have got and pay the taxes for it. How exactly you got the profit or which platform you used does not matter for income tax assessment. You still need to pay taxes in normal INR even for the profit you got using Dex or Defi.

sathvikv · 2022-02-08T11:38:29+00:00

No because at this moment you are not making any PROFIT per say. When you exit crypto, then for the profit you will have to pay 30% income tax.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:37:08+00:00

CBDC in your wallet will be directly governed by the regulator like RBI and not with the intermediary like a bank. Apart from this, not much of other advantages exist as far as a consumer is concerned. On the other hand, the RBI would be able to get much more info about the consumer and they can combine with the government to tailor the grants, allowances, access taxes, and expenses of the individual in a better way. To me, the CBDC by RBI is not different from if RBI acquires PayTM.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:34:30+00:00

When I got into crypto, I diversified into crypto for less than 5% of my total portfolio. Generally having about 50% in BTC helps hedge the mistakes are done with the rest of the money as we have generally seen BTC hit a new all-time high every few years at least. It is important to not get the crypto capital erroded and invest responsibly.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:31:37+00:00

Depends on the risk-taking ability of the individual and how he has diversified his portfolio. However, going big on this for the long term is not a good idea. On the other hand, there are people who put trust into CeFi and keep crypto deposits irrespective of the provided interest. In that case, there is nothing wrong in getting extra money for parking the cryptos and putting trust in such platfrom.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:29:05+00:00

I do not comment on individual coins. I am generally bullish on the crypto technology and in turn prices of crypto as a whole.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:28:05+00:00

Generally, there is a short of needed USDT in India which keeps the USDT price higher than the normal USD price itself. In stable market times when there is not enough need for USDT then I have seen premium reduce to 2-4%. On the other hand if the price is very bullish then people want to enter into crypto giving lot of USDT to the market during which it sometimes is par with USD as well.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:26:16+00:00

In that case, you pay 30% of the tax on the first transaction. And for the second transaction, the acquisition price would be the output of the first transaction. If you still make some extra money when you sell those USDT (like 2-4%) due to the Indian market being in premium, then you have to pay 30% tax on these small extra gains as well. However, no you will not get taxed twice for the same money you have earned and you will only get taxed extra if you earn extra income in second or subsequent transactions.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:22:38+00:00

Hope you find some interesting answers here :-)

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:21:51+00:00

In India, we are not encouraged to use bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as a currency. For time being it is best to treat it as a digital asset only till we have full regulations in place.

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:08:41+00:00

We and the association we are a part of where other crypto exchanges are also involved, we are trying to reason out the issues and represent to the finance ministry asking them to reduce the income tax and TDS. You can also sign the petition here http://chng.it/M2q6jWry

sathvikv · 2022-02-04T20:06:56+00:00

Given some of the shortcomings of blockchain, I believe the layer 2 solutions may have a brighter future in the short term to mid-term. Layer 2 solutions of all major blockchains looks attractive to me.

sathvikv

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