GST Council in its 50th meeting has announced Casinos, Race Courses and Online Gaming will be taxed. This comes after Group of Ministers (GoM) submitted a new report after relooking the issues that was placed in its 47th GST Council meeting.
In the second report, GoM has recommended that since no consensus could be reached on whether the activities of online gaming, horse racing and casinos should be taxed at 28% on the full-face value of bets placed or on the GGR, the GST Council may decide.
The GST Council has recommended that Casino, Horse Racing and Online gaming will be taxed at the uniform rate of 28%.
This doesn’t mean that it will be applicable to all the online games, and will apply only to skill-based games that involve real money, and will apply to full value of bets placed in case of the online gaming. This will apply to several Rummy games that involve betting real money.
Regarding this, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said:
The discussion also looked at what is skill-based and what is chance-based. Whatever be the decision on (what) each of the game is – either skill or chance-based, or being both or being neither – is not what we are looking at. We are purely looking at that which is being taxed.
The government also announced that amendments will be made to law to include online gaming and horse racing as taxable actionable claims. These will join lottery, betting, and gambling.