Bengal clears online gaming bill, mantri blames guv for delay

Kolkata: The Bengal assembly passed a bill on Thursday hiking the GST on online gaming, horse racing and casinos from the existing 18% to 28%. The increased rates on these activities have already been effective in several states from October 1, 2023.

Stater finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, who happens to be a member of the GST council , had proposed the hiking of tax at its meeting in July.

The council had accepted the proposal, following which Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an amendment to the GST law to include taxing online gaming, horse racing and casinos at 28% on face value.

Sitharaman had also said that the effective date for the rollout of higher tax on online gaming and others would be announced after amendment of the GST law.

Bhattacharya, while replying to BJP Balurghat MLA Ashok Lahiri — who had asked during the debate why there was a delay in tabling the bill that resulted in a loss of the state’s share in GST — said that the bill was lying with the Bengal governor all these days. She said that the governor had sent a number of queries on the bill.

 

Bhattacharya said that the state was yet to get Rs 467 crore from the Centre on account of Inter-State Goods and Services Tax (IGST) of the state’s total claim of Rs 2,102 crore. Under GST, IGST is levied on all interstate supplies of goods or services.

The West Bengal Goods and Services Tax (second amendment) Bill, 2023, provides that the services will be taxed at higher rates with no distinction between games of skill and chance. The bill was passed unopposed. Bhattacharya, while placing the bill, held that online gaming, casinos and horse racing were all games of chance and not of skill and, in these cases, “the right to participate and the right to win cannot be separated”.

Source::: THE TIMES OF INDIA,  dated 08/12/2023.