Binance faces paying $86 million tax demand in India

[TomPluz]

Binance faces an $86 million tax demand from Indian authorities under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) framework. This comes as the crypto exchange seeks to reestablish its presence in the country, which has been marked by a challenging regulatory journey.

The return of Binance to India comes after Indian anti-money laundering (AML) agencies gave Binance the green light to resume operations.

On August 15, 2024, coinciding with India’s 78th Independence Day, Binance announced its reentry into the Indian market. The company sees this as a fresh start for cryptocurrency adoption in India, a rapidly growing digital economy. Yet, this fresh start is complicated by past issues.

The origins of this tax dispute can be traced back to December 2023, when India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) issued notices to several offshore crypto exchanges, including Binance, KuCoin, Bittrex, Gate.io and OKX, for operating illegally in the country.

Get more of this Binance story here.

The Indian government through its regulatory agencies is really maximizing all the possible means to tax Binance and since Binance is really interested to get back to the country's crypto market then it must start to negotiate the amount the government might be demanding for it to pay. Let's just say that this can be the cost of doing business with a big market such as India. Let's not hope that this will not be affecting its operation and the fees Binance would be imposing its users...because too much can lead to stagnation which can be a lose-lose to all parties involved. what is opinion with this development.

Do you think this is already excessive on the part of the Indian government or you feel this is just fair and right since Binance violate the law and is so rich, anyway?

[ABCbits]

So basically Indian government is asking for past TDS and crypto tax. I wonder how exactly will Binance ask Indian user pay their past tax, especially for inactive user or user without any coin/fiat on their account.

[MrSpasybo]

Do you think this is already excessive on the part of the Indian government or you feel this is just fair and right since Binance violate the law and is so rich, anyway?

I think that before returning to India, Binance was already aware of this requirement and they were prepared to pay $86M before they could resume serving the trading needs of Indian crypto investors. $86M is not a huge amount considering Binance's financial capacity, let's not forget that Binance once paid $4B to the US DOJ.

I hope that this is the final hurdle for Binance to officially return, comply with the law to operate legally in India, attract the participation of potential investors and help new funds from this market flow into crypto more easily, providing the momentum for us to have a bullrun in the coming months.

[NotATether]

I'm not really sure where this tax amount is coming from. Was Binance not paying their obligations in India properly?

Then again, I suspect that they might have an Indian subsidiary if they are going to be held responsible for paying tax. But given that this is affecting several other exchanges, my hunch is that there was no such company there.

[yhiaali3]

I read a few days ago that the Indian government is imposing a fine of $125 million on Binance, I don't know if it has anything to do with this news or something else, anyway, $125 million fine and $86 million tax is not a burden on Binance at all.

I expect Binance will be very happy to pay these small amounts to stay in the large Indian market where there is a very large user base due to the huge population.

This is a right decision by the Indian government to collect taxes from Indian exchanges and users instead of the previous ban and losing all this money.

[Baofeng]

I thought that everything is fine with the Indian government and that Binance will be back at that country without any hiccup. Because we have the same issue with Binance as well (Philippines) and they cease to exists because of the so called violation but they promise that they will be back.

But I guess $86 million tax is small for them, as compare to the money that they are going to make in the Indian market. So I'm expecting that they are going to pay that fine and be back, easy peasy.

[target]

$125 M + 86M Thats a lot for an exchange that can actualky operate even without license from a country. To hell should Binance care if India bans them as long a peoplenprefer them, its fine. Binance could allow VPN users.

Thats what they will negotiate to make the negotiation amount to drag to just $10M. Its always Binance that is being banned, we don't hear OKx or bybit or coinbase. I'm sure they are not registered to every country.

[Faisal2202]

Do you think this is already excessive on the part of the Indian government or you feel this is just fair and right since Binance violate the law and is so rich, anyway?

One thing I have seen till now even though I'm not an Indian and is they don't just give up on taxes, if they asked Binance to pay $86 Million tax then they have to pay it because it's not a fine its a tax and as far as I have seen tax don't just get reduced but they get increased excessively. This means Binance has to make a decision soon if they want to provide their service to 5 Million users which shifted to foreign exchanges when Binance left India back in 2023.

Binance not only violates the laws but I don't think this tax has something to do with the violation because its the tax, not the fine as I have seen SEC request fines from several platforms, let's not go far and take the most hyped case into consideration, XRP and SEC case in which they asked for $2 billion fine and now the fine has been reduced to some millions.

I think using the term tax is better and more effective than using the term fine if an authority wants to really charge money and get it.

[Stompix]

I'm not really sure where this tax amount is coming from. Was Binance not paying their obligations in India properly?

Hihi, do you think Binance was paying their obligations correctly anywhere? 
These are the guys that fled jurisdiction over jurisdiction, lied about everything, denied facts they claimed one week ago and taxes were probably the last on their list of doing, probably after donating a kidney or liver.

But I wonder who is going to use them, they will probably report everything to the state and also might take those taxes directly from your account, the 1% on trade might be manageable but the 30% one...

[Zed0X]

$125 M + 86M Thats a lot for an exchange that can actualky operate even without license from a country. To hell should Binance care if India bans them as long a peoplenprefer them, its fine. Binance could allow VPN users.

Apparently, Binance still care and want to enter India's market. Didn't you notice in the past years that they were moving towards cooperation and compliance with authorities? It started when they changed their no-KYC policy to forced KYC.

I guess they realized that there is no sense to keep fighting Government restrictions. Crypto is now mainstream and it's only natural for a business like Binance to follow where the money is.

[_act_]

But I guess $86 million tax is small for them, as compare to the money that they are going to make in the Indian market. So I'm expecting that they are going to pay that fine and be back, easy peasy.

What I just think is that Binance will know how they will charge Indians from transactions fees and some other ways if the exchange accept the tax. So it would be from India government to Binance and from Binance to their citizens. So Binance will still make money while Indians will be the one to pay more.

Thats what they will negotiate to make the negotiation amount to drag to just $10M. Its always Binance that is being banned, we don't hear OKx or bybit or coinbase. I'm sure they are not registered to every country.

Because Binance is the leading exchange. But know that 9 exchanges or more were banned from India that time and not only Binance. But Binance decided to approach the regulators and get licensed in India.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Binance faces an $86 million tax demand from Indian authorities under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) framework. This comes as the crypto exchange seeks to reestablish its presence in the country, which has been marked by a challenging regulatory journey.

The return of Binance to India comes after Indian anti-money laundering (AML) agencies gave Binance the green light to resume operations.

On August 15, 2024, coinciding with India’s 78th Independence Day, Binance announced its reentry into the Indian market. The company sees this as a fresh start for cryptocurrency adoption in India, a rapidly growing digital economy. Yet, this fresh start is complicated by past issues.

The origins of this tax dispute can be traced back to December 2023, when India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) issued notices to several offshore crypto exchanges, including Binance, KuCoin, Bittrex, Gate.io and OKX, for operating illegally in the country.

Get more of this Binance story here.

The Indian government through its regulatory agencies is really maximizing all the possible means to tax Binance and since Binance is really interested to get back to the country's crypto market then it must start to negotiate the amount the government might be demanding for it to pay. Let's just say that this can be the cost of doing business with a big market such as India. Let's not hope that this will not be affecting its operation and the fees Binance would be imposing its users...because too much can lead to stagnation which can be a lose-lose to all parties involved. what is opinion with this development.

Do you think this is already excessive on the part of the Indian government or you feel this is just fair and right since Binance violate the law and is so rich, anyway?

India is one of the countries I know that Binance exchange is going to have a difficult time with in other for them to cope staying because they don't play with paying tax over there, not to even talk about when cryptocurrency is what is on consideration for tax payment, they can't spare any on that, if they can't allow their own citizens also to have all it takes in paying task for everything they do regarding crypto, then they may have to see it also an an opportunity for them to make more revenue generation through task on exchange like Binance.

[Z-tight]

I thought everything was going on fine between the Indian authorities and Binance, they just got their license a short time ago, and paid the fine of ~$2m for operating 'illegally' in the country.

So right now, i believe the Indian authorities are not stopping at that, they have seen an opportunity to make money from these crypto firms and they will. Since Binance was operating without a license, then the amount accumulated in taxes is understandable. Binance may have to pay or settle with the authorities, so they can continue operating smoothly.

[Captain Corporate]

This should be basically nothing for them, I would guess that they have some lawyers on retainer so they will probably push back a little, but if you are going against the government itself, there is no way that you can avoid it. There is one way, which is paying a bribe to pay less, so you pay like 20-30 million in bribes, and do not pay a dime on the tax demand, but that is of course something I am not sure if India does, many nations do it, many corrupt officials all over the world does it, but I have never been to India ever so I can't say if they have those people there too. In the end, if they just straight up paid this, it wouldn't be a few days profit for them, its nothing to them anyway.

[Stompix]

India is one of the countries I know that Binance exchange is going to have a difficult time with in other for them to cope staying because they don't play with paying tax over there, not to even talk about when cryptocurrency is what is on consideration for tax payment, they can't spare any on that, if they can't allow their own citizens also to have all it takes in paying task for everything they do regarding crypto, then they may have to see it also an an opportunity for them to make more revenue generation through task on exchange like Binance.

Are we talking about the same Inida where only 2.2% of the population pays tax and has one of the highest black market economies related to GDP in the world? If there is one country on this planet hat had more tax evasion than Greece then that's definitely India.
They might have the laws, they might want to get money through tax but the end result of incompetence is showing in numbers.

Unless they will force Binance to tax themselves the accounts nobody is going to pay one penny in tax.