Mr Grover launched his own fantasy gaming named Crickpe in April this year
Ashneer Grover, fantasy gaming app Crickpe's founder, in a strongly-worded tweet, slammed the tax authorities for issuing massive tax demand notices to gaming companies. Notably, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) has issued pre-show cause notices to 12 online gaming companies worth Rs 55,000 crore. Dream11, the gaming unicorn, has received the largest tax notice for dues worth Rs 25,000 crore.
The former BharatPe founder questioned the thought process of people running the tax department and said that their goal is just to ''harass businessmen.'' Ridiculing the exercise, he said that neither the people would pay the hefty taxes, nor would the government be able to collect them. The ''game of monopoly'' will only benefit lawyers who will challenge the policy in the Supreme Court, he added.
Mr. Grover further remarked that this is called a 'retrospective tax'. While Congress levied the Vodafone Retrospective Tax, BJP has come up with the Gaming GST Retrospective Tax, he said. He took a jibe saying that this is not helping the government's vision of achieving a 5 trillion dollar economy and requested the Finance Ministry to address the issue.
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Reacting to his tweet, one user said, ''Despite all the talks about Ease of Doing Business, India needs to do a lot more to truly become a business-friendly country.'' Another commented, ''5 tn economy was for the political class. Not for us, the people.''
Mr Grover has earlier slammed the move by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council to impose a 28 percent tax on the turnover of online gaming companies. The online gaming industry has also said that levying 28 percent GST will limit their ability to invest in new games and impact cash flows as well as business expansion.
Notably, Mr Grover launched his own fantasy gaming named Crickpe in April this year, which allowed users to create a virtual team of cricketers based on their current form. Players earn points based on the cricketer's performance in a real match.