SOGI ties up with IITs, IIMs & NUJS on tech, legal issues
Times of India | 12 June 2024
Kolkata: Skill Online Games Institute (SOGI) has tied up with many IITs, IIMs and NUJS (Kolkata) to work on the technical and legal issues of online gaming. As per SOGI, the legal online gaming industry in India was worth $3.5 billion and had the potential to grow 5-6 fold in the near future.
In the city on Tuesday, Amrit Kiran Singh, the founder president of Skill Online Games Institute, said the three main charges labelled against the online gaming industry were addiction, skill vs chances and PMLA.“All these issues can be resolved through technical intervention. This is why we are working on it,” he added.
SOGI was set up in 2023 as a repository of all information about online gaming. The online gaming industry comes under the ministry of electronics and information technology.
Singh felt that GST on online gaming should be based on platform fee and not on basis of competition entry amount. A GST of 28% was levied on online gaming from last October and taxes were charged on the whole amount collected. According to Singh, in the two biggest markets of online gaming, US and China, taxes were much less compared to India.
“We have a 1% global market share but have the potential to go to 5-6% at least if not more,” Singh said. He argued that the excessive high tax structure had led to proliferation of illegal gaming apps, mostly from China.
Commenting on GST, Singh said that for every Rs 100 earned by gaming companies, every penny was taxed. However, gaming companies retain 10% of the total collection and the rest is distributed as prizes for which there is TDS as well.