28% GST on online skill-based gaming: A losing gamble

In March 2022, PM Narendra Modi exhorted the country to unlock the potential in online skill-based (OSB) gaming and some other sectors to make us a global leader in the field AVGC (audio, visual, gaming and comics). This had also been highlighted in the FM’s budget speech a month earlier. Hence, the decision of the GST Council to levy a whopping 28% tax on OSB gaming (that too, on the total r…