Optimistic for tax relief in full budget, Crypto leaders react to Interim Budget 2024

Interim Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Interim Budget 2024 with a clear focus on the country’s development with investments in technology, research, and innovation. “For our tech-savvy youth, this will be a golden era,” said Finance Minister in his budget speech. 

However, no provisions for the regulations of emerging technology were made in the FM’s Interim Budget speech. The country’s crypto businesses, which were (and still are) optimistic about tax relief from the Government will have to wait more before any TDS relief whatsoever. Reacting to the budget, industry leaders expressed their enthusiasm to build India’s tech ecosystem and shared their optimistic outlook for the post-election budget 2024. 

Dilip Chenoy, Chairman, Bharat Web3 Association, said, “Considering that this was a Vote-on-account budget, we weren’t expecting any big movement during the session. We are eagerly anticipating changes to be announced post-election when the full budget is announced, and we are optimistic concerning the state of the sector in the country.

“High TDS and income tax rates continue to be hurdles which have caused both creators and consumers to move out of India. This migration has significantly affected the prospects of Web3 in India. We have and will continue to highlight such concerns to key stakeholders,” added Chenoy. 

Nischal Shetty, CoFounder, Shardeum lauded the Finance Minister’s focus on young entrepreneurship. Shetty said, “FM’s establishment of Rs 1 lakh crore corpus with a 50-year interest-free loan is a welcome move. India’s youth have a keen knack for exploring new-age and innovative technologies such as Web3 and blockchain and this announcement by the government will be pivotal in facilitating more research and development on such innovative technologies.” 

Talking to Republic Business, Sumit Gupta, Co-founder, CoinDCX said, “While the VDA industry had hoped for tax and TDS relief, we remain optimistic that the full budget will bring positive developments, including reduced taxation and a supportive policy framework.” 

Rajagopal Menon, VP, WazirX said, “We believe crypto and VDAs can be a force multiplier in achieving Viksit Bharat by empowering individuals at the grassroots level. Digital public infrastructure and the PM's aspiration for 'Anusandhan' will benefit from integrating provisions for long-term financing of domestic crypto projects given how India is at a pivotal phase in the Crypto revolution.” 

Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and Group CEO, PeepalCo, said “Due to it being an election year in India, the Interim Budget had limitations that prevented the necessary tax adjustments for the sector. At a broader level, the Budget is a statement of intent. From Skill India Mission to Startup India to Digital India, the growth engines of the country have been cranked up with special schemes and financial outlay.” 

“The corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore long-term loans to encourage innovation in sunrise sectors and the renewed commitment to developing deep technologies will be the GDP multipliers for the coming decade,” added Singhal. 

Kumar Gaurav, Founder, Cashaa said, “We indeed were expecting some progress along the lines of the regulatory framework in the crypto sector, which has been one of the primary speculations all this while. We do understand that it is an interim budget, and there has been no mention of any regulatory framework or rationalisation in tax or TDS structure, regarding the crypto sector which has been long pending. However, we are hopeful about the coming months and expect to hear encouraging policies soon.”