Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the GST rates on online gaming, horse racing and casinos will be finalized at the 48th GST Council meeting to be held in Madurai in the first week of August. Sitharaman was addressing a press conference on the outcome of the 47th GST Council meeting.
The Council directed that the Group of Ministers on casinos, race courses and online gaming Re-examine the issues in their terms of reference based on further inputs from the states and submit their report by July 15 as Goa has taken up the issue and asked for casinos to be delinked from online gaming and horse racing.
“Following Goa’s request for special treatment to casinos, it was decided that the GoM will hold another hearing for online games and horse racing as well; the GoM will submit the report by July 15 and the GST Council will meet again on the GoM’s agenda. Will do the first week of August,” the finance minister said.
On the question of compensation cess, the Finance Minister said that broadly speaking, states have said that compensation can be continued for at least a few years if not for at least five years. About 15-16 spoke of compensation.
The minister said that the GST Appellate Tribunal and the GoM will be constituted to address the various concerns raised by the states on the amendment in the CGST Act. On IT reforms, the GoM, inter alia, recommended that the GSTN should set up an AI/ML based mechanism.
Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said the third GoM has made specific recommendations on what GSTN needs to do to address issues such as forged invoices; For example, risk-based models will be developed that will lead to greater pre-registration checks on at-risk entities.
,artificial intelligence And machine learning Utilities will be developed to ensure that we have better compliance than we do now; The GoM will keep on giving suggestions and GSTN will continue to implement them.”
The two-day 47th meeting of the GST Council was held in Chandigarh on Wednesday. The GST on several items was also revised during the meeting.