Bulgaria Increases Tax on Gambling

The Bulgarian National Assembly has been waffling on their new tax until now. After a second reading approving the amendments to the Corporate Income Act the country of Bulgaria will have a unified across the board fifteen percent tax on gambling activities. The Corporate Income Act amendments will take effect in 2010. Today gambling on sports is taxed at ten per cent of revenue, while all other games of chance, such as lottery, casino games and bingo, are posted at twelve per cent tax. The unified tax will create more revenue with less accounting. The increase in the tax on gambling has been widely criticised by Bulgaria's gambling industry and Bulgaria’s largest bookmaker, Eurofootball.

The bookmaker has been lobbying for government regulation of the online gambling industry. Eurofootball contends that the international operators of online gambling web sites are doing business illegally because none of them is licensed as a bookmaker in Bulgaria. The increased tax may have a negative effect on the gambling industry, in which about 80,000 people are directly or indirectly employed. The gambling industry has already been down 40 per cent since the economic slowdown. According to a statement, from Eurofootball the 12 per cent tax rate will cause the industry to loose about 30 million leva next year. The conservative party “Law, Order, Justice” (RZS) and the members of the Blue Coalition had proposed that the gambling tax be raised from its current 10% to 15%, and it looks as though according to the Sofia Echo they will have their way. According to Finance Ministry calculations, the increase would bring in much needed extra funds to the Budget of Bulgaria.

Concentrating on better regulation of the online gambling business, could bring as much as 160 million leva more to the countries annual budget, the Eurofootball company states. The Bulgarian Association for Entertainment and Gambling Games predicted in early November that as many as forty thousand jobs would be lost if the taxes were increased.