Artificial Intelligence and online gaming segments can add up to $300 billion dollars to India's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026-27, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said here on Thursday.
The Minister of State for Information and Technology said the government will host a global summit titled 'India AI -2023' on December 10 this year in a major push to artificial intelligence.
The GST Council intends to review the implementation of the revamped tax regime at the end of March 2024.
With tax notices going to companies for the first year of the indirect tax reform now, the GST Appellate Tribunal, which has also been created recently, is expected to get a flurry of cases.
"Our target is $1 trillion in the digital economy, part of the $5 trillion dollar GDP by 2026-27, which would be 20 per cent of the GDP. We think that AI will be a very significant component of that, which is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the 'India AI' programme," he told reporters on the sidelines of a technology conference at Amity University, Noida.
The minister also shared that on December 10, the government will host the first global summit titled 'India AI 2023 ..
A government official to Reuters that the gaming firms have evaded taxes.
In August this year, the GST authority imposed a 28% tax on online gaming companies on the total funds deposited to play online games.
Last week, Delta Corp received a GST notice for short payment of tax to the tune of ₹6,384 crore, taking the overall tax demand on the company to over ₹23,000 crore.
Last month, the company was slapped with a show cause notice for alleged short payment of taxes worth ₹16,800 crore.
A host of other online gaming firms, like Dream11 also received GST show cause notices this month for alleged short payment of taxes.
Separately, a show cause notice was sent to GamesKraft in September last year for alleged GST evasion of ₹21,000 crore.
GST on online gaming firms
The Finance Ministry notified October 1 as the date for implementation of the amended GST law provisions for taxing e-gaming, casinos, and horse racing.
The GST authority said that amendments to Integrated Goods and Service Tax will make it mandatory for offshore online gaming platforms to register in India and pay taxes in accordance with domestic law.
According to the latest changes to the Central GST Act, online gaming, casinos, and horse racing are now treated as “actionable claims” similar to lottery, betting, and gambling and are subject to 28% GST on the full face value of bets.
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar recently said that the Artificial Intelligence and online gaming segments can add up to $300 billion dollars to India’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026-27.
On concerns raised by the online gaming industry over high taxation, he said the government sees that “permissible and legally acceptable” online gaming as being an important part of opportunities before youngsters.
“However, it has been clear that there are some bad actors in the gaming sector who have misused the internet and that there is absolute justification to crack down on them. The framework for online gaming has been finalis