Crypto tax calculator

What section 115BBH charges

Section 115BBH was the provision that gave virtual digital assets their own charging rule rather than leaving them to the ordinary capital-gains machinery, and it is unusually short about what it allows. Income from the transfer of a VDA is charged at a flat 30%, with the Health and Education Cess of 4% on top, which is where the 31.2% figure on this page comes from.

The deduction side is the part worth reading twice. The section permits no deduction in respect of any expenditure other than cost of acquisition. Cost of acquisition is the whole of it. Exchange trading fees, brokerage, gas fees, withdrawal charges and platform subscriptions are not deductible against this income, which means the taxable figure and the amount that actually reached your bank account are rarely the same number. This page follows the statute and deducts nothing but the cost of acquisition.

Why the rate you pay can be higher than the rate on this page

31.2% is the base, not the ceiling. Surcharge applies on top of it and depends on your total income for the year, which this tool never asks for and never sees. Crypto income also does not get the 15% surcharge cap that applies to dividend income and to gains under sections 111A, 112 and 112A, so for a high total income the effective rate on this income can run to roughly 39%. Nothing on this page includes that, and the note printed alongside every result says so.

Each transfer stands on its own

Schedule VDA in the return is transaction-level: one row per transfer, each with its own cost of acquisition, its own consideration and its own income. There is no annual net figure to arrive at. That is why this calculator takes one disposal rather than a year's worth — and why, if you have a year of trades to work through, the Schedule VDA generator takes a transaction file and produces the rows.