Minister of State (MoS) for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, recently spoke about the recent changes in the GST rates on online gaming, casinos and horse racing. He also explained how the GST council reached the conclusion. He also talked about how Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) will be approaching for reconsideration.
Although there are some bad actors in the online gaming industry, Chandrasekhar believes that the GST Council’s decision was taken after proper deliberation. He also drew similarities between online gambling and gaming, and even called it a social evil.
On the other hand, to remove these bad actors posing as online gaming firms, MeitY was tasked with creating the framework to regulate online gaming and what kind of games will be permissible.
“We will certainly take this evolving framework that allows permissible online gaming, and we will ask the GST council to consider it. Then their own view of the online gaming space will be divided into permissible and non-permissible gaming,” he said in an interview on ‘The Indian Express Adda‘.
MeitY can only request to reconsider the decision, says MoS Chandrasekhar
The minister also said that MeitY can only suggest reconsidering the decision for GST on online gaming. And said that the final call is exclusively in the hands of the GST council, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
On the topic of GST council explaining the benefits of the new tax policy to states, Chandrasekhar said that this is due to some companies evading tax that lead to significant revenue loss for state governments. He also referred to how a gaming company in Karnataka was involved in tax evasion.
Chandrasekhar is hopeful that the new framework will be able to dish out these companies and convince the GST council as the current tax rate, if levied before every game in real money games, will only add to extra charges.
He further says that if the case for GST on online gaming remains unchanged, players will possibly leave the game, which will lead to end of several small startups. MeitY, as per Chandrasekhar’s statements, does not want these startups to fail, as it will lead to a negative flow in the industry.