PANAJI
Goa, informally billed by Union Minister of State for Tourism G Kishan Reddy as the casino capital of India, may lend a few expert touches of its own to the central government's taxation policy on online gaming, race courses and casinos.
The State Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho, who is a member of a Group of Ministers specifically appointed to examine the taxability of the three verticals by the Goods and Services Tax Council, is scheduled to attend the meeting of the group on May 2. He says that the GoM is looking to adopt best global practices for taxation.
"It is a GoM meeting called to discuss about casinos, about horse racing about online gaming, about fantasy games... as to how much taxation should be there. What all practices are to be adopted. When I say practices, their (industry) demand is that they should be taxed on gross gaming revenue and not on the transactions taking place or the number of times they (consumers) play on different games," Godinho said. Godinho is the Goa government's official representative to the GST council.
"We are going to adopt best practices which are there in the rest of the world, where the casino industry is there, where horse racing, etc etc things are there. Basically as a GoM we have to do our homework and see that the best practices as far as this particular industry is concerned are adopted and then it will go to a fuller council of the GST where they will take a decision in totality," the Transport Minister said.
Last year, the GST Council had formed the Group of Ministers, which includes Godinho and other ministers from several States, and tasked it with examining the need for tweaking legal provisions if necessary to carve out a better system of valuation of the three services.
