India will look at revising the existing tax regime for online gaming companies after March, said a top official from the finance ministry.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra said that the whole tax structure for gaming companies will likely be revised after March.
This comes shortly after the government released its Interim Budget where gaming companies were expecting some form of tax relief.
In December last year, several gaming companies received show-cause notices for alleged GST evasion of over Rs 1.12 lakh crore during financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24. This was after the government revised the tax slabs for gaming companies from 18% to 28% in July last year.
At the time, the move was termed as a body blow by several players in the space, with many warning that gamers might migrate to platforms outside India in a bid to avoid paying taxes altogether. As a result, several key players have had to resort to layoffs to cope with the GST demand.
However, recently, Google said it would allow real money gaming companies to list their apps on its app store. According to Roland Landers, the CEO of All India Gaming Federation, the move is expected to boost revenue for companies in the sector where 70% of the revenue is generated by Pay to Play platforms.
Edited by Megha Reddy
