Mumbai: The GST council has stuck to its earlier decision to impose a 28 per cent levy on the full face value of bets placed on online gaming, casinos and horse racing, and planned to implement it from 1 October.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who chaired the Council’s meeting, said the Centre would now strive to amend the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law in Parliament’s current session itself to enable the implementation of the levy, despite dissent from Sikkim and Goa over the modalities of the tax for casino users.
Tamil Nadu finance minister Thangam Thennarasu raised concerns about the levy’s impact on the State-wide ban on online gaming, which Sitharaman said would be addressed in the language of the new norms to explicitly state the tax cannot be levied where a ban is in place.
Delhi government’s representative sought a fresh review for the online gaming sector, but most other States leaned towards sticking to the council’s decision last month which had been taken after three years of deliberations, Sitharaman conveyed after the virtual meeting.
The online gaming industry, which had termed the council’s decision a death knell endangering billions of dollars of investments and thousands of jobs in the sunrise sector, remained anxious but appreciated a critical clarification on the valuation rules for the 28 per cent levy, approved by the council on 2 August.
