An exchange tax report is useful only for the transactions that exchange can see. Wallet transfers, decentralised trades, purchases on another platform, airdrops, staking receipts, and lost acquisition history can make its gain figure incomplete. Reconstruct the FY 2025-26 activity before filing AY 2026-27.
Create a wallet-and-exchange inventory
List every exchange account, wallet address, custody platform, and bank route used during the year. Download transaction-level data before an account is closed or an exchange changes its export format.
| Event type | Evidence to preserve |
|---|---|
| Buy or sell | Trade confirmation, value, fees, and payment trail |
| Wallet transfer | Sending and receiving addresses plus transaction hash |
| Crypto-to-crypto exchange | Both assets, quantities, timestamp, and supported value |
| Reward, airdrop, or staking receipt | Source, receipt date, quantity, and valuation basis |
| TDS entry | Payer or exchange record, Form 26AS, and AIS |
Mark internal wallet transfers so they are not mistaken for disposals. Investigate deposits for which the acquisition source or cost is missing.
Calculate each taxable event from supported data
Virtual digital asset rules can restrict how losses and costs are treated. Do not apply ordinary share-investment assumptions to VDA transactions. Use the transaction inventory to identify the consideration, cost evidence, charges, and any event requiring separate review.
Where an exchange reports a rupee value, retain the report and the basis used. Cross-platform and decentralised activity may need a separate calculation because no single statement contains both sides.
Match VDA TDS without relying on it as the transaction ledger
Compare exchange or payer TDS records with Form 26AS and AIS. A TDS credit can identify a disposal that is missing from an exchange summary, but it does not establish the gain or cost. Ask the reporting party to correct an inaccurate PAN or amount.
Use the income tax calculator only after the VDA working and other income are assembled. Review the capital gains and trading-income guide and ITR form selector before choosing the filing route.
Retain raw exports, wallet evidence, transaction hashes, valuation notes, bank statements, TDS records, AIS, Form 26AS, computation, filed return, and acknowledgement.
Example: coins move between two personal wallets
A withdrawal from an exchange followed by a matching receipt in a self-custody wallet may be an internal transfer rather than a disposal. Match the asset, quantity, timestamp, transaction hash, sending address, receiving address, and network fee. Keep the evidence that both wallets belong to the taxpayer. If the received quantity or destination cannot be explained, do not label the movement internal merely to avoid investigating it.
Review the crypto and VDA tax guide for transaction treatment questions and the high-value AIS checklist when reported entries do not align with the inventory. Exchange shutdowns, inaccessible wallets, missing cost history, overseas accounts, and large peer-to-peer transactions are escalation points because the ordinary exchange export may not support the filed position.
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Trace ownership and taxable transfers across wallets
Build a wallet and exchange inventory before calculating tax. Record each exchange account, self-custody wallet, public address where available, opening balance, deposits, withdrawals, transfers, purchases, sales, swaps, rewards, and closing balance. Mark transfers between the taxpayer's own wallets so they are not mistaken for disposals, but retain the transaction hashes and both sides of the movement.
For each taxable transfer, preserve the asset quantity, date and time, consideration, supported acquisition cost, fees, counterparty or platform record, and applicable TDS entry. Exchange summaries can omit off-platform movements or use a different valuation method, so reconcile them with the taxpayer's full transaction history and bank trail. Do not net unrelated gains and losses merely because a dashboard shows a single result. Keep unresolved wallet ownership, missing cost, foreign-platform, and TDS differences visible before filing.
Retain the export settings and download date for every exchange report used. A later platform report can change labels or valuations, so the filed calculation should remain reproducible from the archived data. <!-- ay-route-specific-depth:end -->