I am a developer from India specialising in web3 development.
I participate in many web3 hackathons and Alhamdullilah I earn pretty well from those. Now the issue is that the Indian government considers my hard-earned hackathon money the same as someone who gambled and earned a fortune and has a flat 30% tax on it. I don’t want to pay the 30% on it because it’s insane. So I convert the crypto to fiat in cash as there won’t be any way for someone to trace that. So when filing my tax returns, as a Muslim should I have to declare that income and pay the tax just because I was born in this country and I have no means to move to a tax haven?
I would also like to point out that everything that I purchase here, from food to internet to fuel I have to pay 10-28% tax on it and there’s no way to avoid that. So my question is that even when I’m paying so much in tax, do I still have to pay tax on this from an Islamic point of view?