Where the VDA provisions you know went when the 1961 Act was replaced — the charge, the one per cent deduction, the new reporting duty on exchanges, and the two words the Act now uses for the same thing.
This is the first thing to notice, and it is easy to miss. The 2025 Act keeps virtual digital asset as a defined term — the definition moves from s.2(47A) to s.2(111), and s.104(2) uses the phrase when it defines what an unexplained asset can be. But the two provisions that create the new reporting regime, s.509 and s.446, both speak of a crypto-asset, and so do rules 242 and 243 under them.
Whether those are the same thing, or whether crypto-asset is a narrower or wider set than virtual digital asset, is decided by the definitions, and this page does not carry them. It is worth settling before you advise anyone that a reporting duty does or does not bite. Here is the one place we have read the words ourselves:
For the purposes of this section, “asset” includes money, bullion, jewellery, virtual digital asset or other valuable article.
| What it does | Under the old law | Under the new law | What to notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| The definition | s.2(47A) — ‘virtual digital asset’ | s.2(111) — ‘virtual digital asset’ | The definition carries across with its heading unchanged. Whether the words inside it are unchanged is a separate question, and the number moving from 2(47A) to 2(111) is reason enough to read it again. |
| The charge | s.115BBH — Tax on income from virtual digital asset | s.194 — Tax on certain incomes | The dedicated VDA charging section is gone as a dedicated section. Section 194 is a single provision that also absorbs s.115BB (lotteries and games), s.115BBF (patents), s.115BBG (carbon credits) and s.115BBJ (online games). The rate and the conditions now come out of that section's own structure rather than from a section of its own, so a citation to ‘the 30 per cent section’ no longer identifies anything. |
| Deduction at source | s.194S — Payment on transfer of virtual digital asset | s.393 — Tax to be deducted at source | One old section answers to three new ones. The deduction obligation itself sits in s.393, which is the single consolidated TDS section for the whole Act and works through a Table. |
| Deduction at source — reporting | s.194S | s.397 — Compliance and reporting | The reporting side of the s.194S obligation is carried by s.397, not by s.393. |
| Deduction at source — relaxation | s.194S | s.400 — Power of Central Government to relax provisions of this Chapter | The relaxation power that s.194S carried is now the general power in s.400. |
| Reporting by exchanges and intermediaries | s.285BAA — Obligation to furnish information on transaction of crypto-asset | s.509 — Obligation to furnish information on transaction of crypto-asset | This one carries across with the same heading, and it is the provision that makes the whole reporting regime work. |
| Penalty for a reporting failure | No counterpart recorded. | s.446 — Penalty for failure to furnish information or for furnishing inaccurate information on transaction of crypto-asset | The department's current list of the Act gives s.446 this heading. Its comparison table, however, maps 1961 s.271B (failure to get accounts audited) to s.446. The two sources disagree about what s.446 is, and we have not resolved it — see the note below. |
| Unexplained holdings | s.69A — Unexplained money, etc. | s.104 — Unexplained asset | Section 104(2) defines ‘asset’ to include a virtual digital asset by name, which s.69A never did. An unexplained crypto holding is inside the section on its face, and the tax on it comes from s.195, not from s.104. |
| Valuation | Rule 11UA — Determination of fair market value | Rule 57 — Determination of fair market value | Rules 11UA, 11UAA and 11UAB all collapse into a single rule 57. |
| Reporting — the obligation | New rule | Rule 242 — Obligation for reporting transaction of crypto-asset under section 509 | The department's comparison table records this as a new rule with no 1962 counterpart. |
| Reporting — what must be reported | New rule | Rule 243 — Reporting requirements for transaction of crypto-asset under section 509 | Also new. Rules 242 and 243 together are the machinery behind s.509. |
| The challan-cum-statement | Form 26QE | Form 141 | The form a specified person files for tax deducted on a transfer. |
| The quarterly statement | Form 26QF — Quarterly statement of tax deposited in relation to transfer of virtual digital asset under section 194S | Form 142 | If your compliance calendar or your software still says 26QF, it is out of date. |
Three things change for anyone advising on crypto.
Your citations are all stale. Nothing in the old numbering survives. A note, an engagement letter or a software field that says 115BBH, 194S, 26QE or 26QF is pointing at a repealed provision. The substance may well be the same; the reference is not.
The charge is no longer in a section of its own. Section 194 carries the crypto charge alongside lotteries, patents, carbon credits and online games. That matters for reading it: an argument about what s.115BBH did or did not permit was an argument about a section written for one subject, and it is now an argument about one entry in a section written for several.
There is a reporting regime with a penalty behind it. Section 509 obliges the furnishing of information on crypto-asset transactions, rules 242 and 243 say who must report and what, and s.446 penalises a failure or an inaccuracy. The reporting duty falls on the person holding the information — the exchange or intermediary — not on the taxpayer, which is precisely why a taxpayer’s own position needs to match what is being reported about them.