Minister Chandrasekhar Accuses Certain Businesses of Misusing Gaming Laws to Operate Gambling Businesses
In a recent statement, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar accused certain gaming companies of manipulating the system by disguising themselves as legitimate gaming entities while actually operating gambling ventures or evading tax payments in the past.
In his comments at the Express Adda Live event, amid controversy over the GST Council’s decision to levy 28 percent tax on online gaming, the electronics and information technology minister reiterated his intention to lower the GST on permitted online gaming and has spoken to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman about the matter.
The businessman-turned-politician denies that the GST decision is a “body blow” to the industry as it has been presented.
“For all the characterization of body blows, we are shocked (by the GST Council’s decision), there have been people who have gamed the system as gaming companies,” he said.
“Some of these platforms have disguised themselves as gaming and engaged in gambling. Some of these platforms have disguised themselves as gaming and paid no GST at all, up to 18 per cent,” he added.
Chandrasekhar said he knows of a “bad actor” in his home state of Karnataka who has gamed the system and made a lot of money on which he has not paid GST.
He said that there is a general tendency among governments to consider online gambling and online gambling as a substitute for gambling and thus a social evil, prompting both the Center and the states to act against it and ensure that it does not grow.
The minister reminded that his ministry has made a distinction between what is allowed and what is not, and “ideally we would have a system where the latter is taxed punitively for the purpose of deterrence, while the former is taxed at a lower rate to promote innovation and job creation”.
On the government’s push to set up a fact-checking unit, Chandrasekhar said such a unit is needed in a system where there is no accountability on the platform.
“Misinformation is no longer an academic problem, it’s weaponized by state actors, vested interests, and it causes real problems … and every responsible government has as much responsibility to protect its citizens from this type of misinformation backlash, the consequences of disinformation weaponization, as it does freedom of speech,” he said.
“The right to freedom of speech established in Article 19 should not be confused or equated with the right to give false information. Misinformation harms people,” he said, adding that this is how the state defends its position in the courts.
He also said that there is an asymmetry between big tech companies and content creators, and the upcoming Digital India Act aims to correct the same by ensuring that whoever sweats content creation gets paid by big tech.
In light of concerns about the governance of edtech company Byju, Chandrasekhar said he met with venture capital funds and told them about the need to mentor startup founders in order to build good companies.
The minister also spoke about the social media platform Twitter, saying that the government’s relationship with the platform is not adversarial.
“Don’t disrupt the whole process of building a trillion dollar economy by saying somebody threatened somebody with jail and all that nonsense. It’s all unnecessary,” he said.
He also said the emergence of a “recruitment scam” at the country’s largest technology firm TCS was “surprising and disappointing”.
The minister also said that the Foxconn-Vedanta trade shelving is not a blow and may actually be a good thing as both the companies are now independently considering setting up fancy units.
“All things being equal, this is actually a good thing for the country where both partners, who are valued investors in India, who continue to invest in other parts of the economy and create jobs, want to pursue their semiconductors independently,” he said.
