Lottery tickets may become costlier as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday proposed to remove service tax exemption given to the sellers and distributors.
The Union Budget for 2015-16 has proposed withdrawal of service tax exemption on “selling or marketing agent of lottery ticket.” According to the Budget documents, “the intention in law has been to levy Service Tax on the services provided by... distributors or selling agents of lottery.”
In this regard, the “consideration for service would include... amount retained by the distributor or selling agent of lottery from gross sale amount of lottery ticket, or, as the case may be, the discount received, that is the difference in the face value of lottery ticket and the price at which the distributor or selling agent gets such tickets.”
The service tax rate itself has been proposed to be increased from 12.34 per cent to 14 per cent, after subsuming Education Cess and Secondary and Higher Education Cess.
