Always pay your dues. Otherwise you will lose your standing
Business
Casino operator Delta Corp’s share plunge 20pc after receiving $1.34bn tax notice
BENGALURU (Web Desk) – Always pay back your loans, never withhold the money payable to others and don’t cheat. These are moral values acknowledged around the globe. Once you ignore the basic ethical principles, you lose your credibility. Delta Corp is the latest example from India.
According to Reuters, share prices of Indian casino operator Delta Corp plunged as much as 20 per cent on Monday to their lowest since January 2021, after the company said that it received a notice to pay 111.40 billion rupees ($1.34bn) in tax arrears.
Delta Corp, which owns casinos as well as poker and rummy websites, added that the company and two of its units received intimations of an additional tax shortfall aggregating to 56.83 billion rupees for the period between July 2017 and March 2022.
The notice deals another blow to the gaming company which is already contending with the federal government's elevated levies.
The stock logged its steepest intraday percentage decline since July 12, when the country's Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council decided to impose a 28pc indirect tax on money collected by gaming companies, which industry experts had said would sap earnings of the $1.5bn online gaming industry. The stock had lost a fifth of its value then.
The shares pared some of the losses and were last down nearly 18pc at 144.05 rupees apiece, pushing them down 32pc this year. Meanwhile, peers Nazara Technologies and Onmobile Gaming climbed about 18pc and 46pc, respectively this year.
While global investors have urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the 28pc gaming tax, citing a setback to prospective investments of about $4bn, the country's revenue secretary had said there was no need to rethink the tax.
