GST Authorities Notify 60 More Non-Compliant Offshore Online Gaming Platforms To MeitY

The Goods and Services Tax authorities have urged the Information Technology Ministry to block 60 offshore online gaming platforms as it seeks to restrict entities not complying with India's registration laws.

Details of these platforms, according to an official with knowledge of the matter, were provided to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as of late March.

These entities are in addition to the 110 gaming platforms already facing similar action, the official told NDTV Profit on the condition of anonymity.

NDTV Profit had previously reported that the government had blocked over 60 platforms that hadn’t complied with its mandate almost a month ago. The list had originally included 110 platforms, with the remainder being investigated by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, the official quoted above said.

The Centre is an enforcement body under the Ministry of Home Affairs that works to curb cybercrime.

The blocking of these platforms follows the decision of the 51st Goods and Service Tax Council,whichd mandated offshore gaming platforms operating in India to register and pay 28% GST on their earnings. The law also allowed for the blocking of platforms that failed to comply with the rules.

Owing to the nature of operations, whereby the website URLs constantly change, curbing offshore online gaming platforms has emerged as a whack-a-mole challenge for authorities.

This will remain a continuous exercise for authorities, the official said.

The online gaming sector, since the imposition of 28% GST, has boosted government revenues. In an interview with NDTV Profit after the interim budget, Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra said the revenue from online gaming companies in the last financial year was forecasted at Rs 1,600 crore.

However, after the implementation of the 28% GST, revenue in the current fiscal is estimated at about Rs 13,000–14,000 crore.