Feature
Jaitley warns India Inc. against profiting from liberal tax regime
New Delhi: Warning corporates not to take unfair advantage of the liberalised tax environment, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said the world is moving towards a more transparent regime that would remove the veil of secrecy from unlawful transactions.
“I think, for every assessee, every person in the commercial business also, it is a judgement call that in a liberal economic environment of reasonable and lower taxation rates, ‘go straight’,” he said at the foundation day celebrations of the Enforcement Directorate.
“… and therefore if you transact within the limits of law, it is much safer, if you breach it, gone are the days where offences would go undetected.”
He also said the G20 group of countries’ initiative on automatic transmission of information will make every monetary transaction transparent by 2017.
“Each country would go out of the way to cooperate with others. The Americans have particularly taken a strong initiative in their domestic law. They want every country to sign an arrangement with them with regard to the transmission of information,” the finance minister said.
“Both these arrangements, by 2017, are going to make extremely risky for anybody to have unlawful assets or unlawful transaction of money. We, in India, have to prepare our people for that,” he added.
Last month in Washington, Jaitley sought urgent implementation of the automatic exchange of financial account information.
“We strongly feel that there is a need to ensure that the common reporting standards on automatic exchange of information should be implemented on a fully reciprocal global basis,” he said at the weekend’s annual Spring Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
“… and those countries which have not yet committed to the timeline of 2017 or 2018 should do it without any further delay.”
As offshore tax havens are obliged to provide information on cases only when investigation is launched, offshore tax evasion and flow of illicit money can be tackled only by the free flow of account information exchanged by countries on an automatic basis, Jaitley told the global forum.
He said the forum should ensure that every country is effectively implementing common reporting standards, have the necessary legal and regulatory framework, and are also exchanging information in practice.
At the G20 Brisbane summit last November, leaders endorsed a new global transparency standard by which more than 90 jurisdictions will begin automatic exchange of tax information using a common reporting standard by 2017-18.
India has no official estimate of illegal money stashed away overseas, but the unofficial assessments puts the figure somewhere between $466 billion to $1.4 trillion.
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.
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