UK Remote Gaming Tax Levels Expected

Published: Monday, March 19, 2007 Online-Casinos.com

U.K. REMOTE GAMING TAX LEVELS EXPECTED THIS WEEK

Chancellor's final budget speech due Wednesday

The key question of taxation and license payment levels for online gambling operators will hopefully be finalised later this week when UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown makes his last budget speech, the Independent reports.

Brown is expected to use his last budget speech on Wednesday to introduce a new gaming tax for online casinos and poker companies.

Insiders have predicted that the announcement will coincide with the presentation of a report by a parliamentary committee that will criticise the process that led to Manchester being awarded the UK's one "supercasino" licence.

The expectation is that the remote gaming levy is likely to be set relatively low and be payable only on the profits that offshore gaming companies make from their UK customers.

There is now pressure on the government to announce the tax provisions before September, when the Gambling Act comes into force.

The online gambling industry has been calling for the introduction of a UK gaming licence. Companies would pay a license fee to offer services to punters and would also pay a tax on profits derived in the UK.

One unidentified executive at an online gaming group said: "The notion that we will move to the UK, uproot all our people and pay corporation tax is daft. A licence fee makes more sense."

The Chancellor is being urged to make the budget as corporate friendly as possible. John Cridland, deputy director-general of the CBI, called for "an acknowledgement that the business tax burden has crept much too high".