The Income Tax Department under the Bengaluru Tax Department today visited the premises of many Indian Cryptocurrency Exchange Companies like Zebpay and Unocoin. The visit spanned over various cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kochi, Noida etc. from different teams.
The IT Department wants to keep a close watch of every transaction that is happening no these exchanges and also on the account holders, traders, their identities and bank accounts. Major banks like ICICI and HDFC barred these exchanges from transacting online directly with consumers hence they now ask for a direct deposit into their accounts via NEFT or a cheque. While people transfer money to these exchanges and wait before Bitcoin is up again and they can buy it, companies earn interest over this amount that is kept until used again to buy more Bitcoins.
Currently there are 11 such exchanges operating in India with 30,000 active traders at any given time, claims these exchanges.
These visits by IT Department teams are not to be worried about because Bitcoin is a virtual currency, highly volatile and unregulated. The IT Department wants to know who are transacting in Bitcoins and how these companies are exactly running their operations, also to find out any loopholes if invented by the exchange companies. Keep on investing.
Bitcoin was $17,086 at the time of writing.